Get Lucky Understanding Luck and Improving the Odds

Chapter 1 Luck Begins You very likely utter this word at least once a day without even thinking about it. Luck. "Bye--and good luck," you say, ending a phone call. "I got lucky," you think when you snag a great parking space. "She's so lucky," you think when you hear about a friend who got a better job. You live with luck as your silent companion for your whole life. Most of the time, you probably don't even pay attention to it. Chances are, you really think about luck only when you buy a lottery ticket or participate in a contest. Luck is so much more than that. Superstition? Luck? What's the Difference? The interweaving themes of luck and superstition are so knotted over time that it's almost impossible to separate them. Yet we want you to notice a slight difference. According to Dictionary.com, luck (as a noun) is: THE FORCE THAT SEEMS TO OPERATE FOR GOOD OR ILL in a person's life, as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities. Superstition is: A BELIEF OR NOTION, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of THE OMINOUS SIGNIFICANCE of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like. Luck is defined as a force that tips the balance in life. Superstition is merely a belief or idea based on "nothing" to alleviate fear or harm. Forget superstition--let's study luck and see if this force can be understood. For our purposes, we define luck as winning in the short term or being successful in the long term owing to chance. Does Luck Exist? From the philosophical perspective, luck exists because often we lack complete information and perfect predictive powers. If an event is uncertain and the result is positive, it can be attributed to good luck. Is Luck a Force of Nature? We think so. It is certainly a part of human nature. The belief in luck is somewhat similar to the belief in God. It takes faith that it exists. We've seen luck appear in the most unusual circumstances. It intervenes, like grace, in situations where even hope is fading. What differs is that luck can appear even when you don't need it. Luck is just one of those things in life that you either acknowledge and work with or ignore and deny. It is there whatever you do. We have written this book to reacquaint you with the concept of luck and to help you develop a relationship with it. What is luck? Why is it sometimes defined through a horseshoe or a four-leaf clover? What's been lucky in the past, and what might be lucky in the future? Are some people born lucky? Can you improve your own luck? The history of luck is extensive and fascinating. The belief in luck began with the most ancient cultures--as early as cavemen. We have found that our ancestors studied the subject carefully, and much of what they found and believed survives today. Is luck something we can understand? Is it just superstitious to assume we can attract luck? We've examined the issue from many angles, and we've come to believe that although you can't control luck, you can certainly understand it and explore your relationship with luck effectively. We believe that there are luckier times in our lives and that it's possible to forecast when luck will be with us. We also think that knowing when your luck is "out" is even more interesting--those are the "walk away and don't take risks" periods when you don't have luck working for you. How people see luck these days is varied and personal. Yet no one, not even the most hard-core rationalist, is immune from using the word luck or judging something or someone to be lucky. Luck in embedded in our consciousness, if not our DNA. Where do you start with luck? It's tough to approach such a huge topic. To get an idea of how the concept of luck takes root in society, we thought we'd just look aroDolnick, Barrie is the author of 'Get Lucky Understanding Luck and Improving the Odds', published 2007 under ISBN 9780307347503 and ISBN 0307347508.