A mystery of life that has fascinated humans for eternity – luck.
I believe over time we have evolved at understanding luck, from believing luck as some form of divine intervention to scientifically defining luck.
Obviously I have been fascinated with this topic forever. My own understanding has evolved from being envious of others I deemed successful to attributing hard work and luck to their journey.
The way I understand it, luck can be explained to some extent and also manifested to some extent. Only to some extent. I will try my best to explain.
Let us say you come across someone you consider successful (for which we all have our own measures and definitions). Now, common problem that hinders our objectivity is that of either overestimating the role of luck or discounting the role of absolute efforts in their success. Means either we assume conveniently that the success of this person has either come largely or completely through luck (ex: being at the right place, right time, got favour from someone, got viral by algorithms) or we conveniently ignore all the hard work they have put in (creating a tik tok video too is work). As a result we fail to look at luck as a necessary but not sufficient ingredient in the realm of success.
A simpler way to look at luck in my opinion is this. Imagine there is a very popular game where players routinely hit a ball with a bat and the winners are those who hit the farthest. Now everyone passionate about this game will end up practicing their skills, going through rigorous fitness routines, learning biomechanics that help them hit the ball farthest etc. So it is hard to choose one player over the other if one has to place bets. Now when the competition happens, it is not just about the controllables (bat speed, arm strength, focus on the ball, flow of the bat etc) but also some uncontrollables (external factors). What if just as one of the players hits the ball, with same strength as any other player, a gust of wind charges in the stadium and gives enough tailwind to the ball that it ends up a few meters beyond what it would otherwise. Before or after this player hits the ball there is no gust of wind. This player wins. Did he not win because of luck (the uncontrollable wind factor) ? But then did he not work as hard as others in getting ready for the tournament? Did he not put in as many, if not less, hours as other competitors ?
Essentially what we see is that in order for luck to work, you need to still put in all the hard work. You wont end up in the final set of players in the tournament without all the hard work. You need to put in the hard work and keep hitting the ball with all your strength. You cannot conjure up luck but it will strike when it has to. But you still need to be the “man in the arena”. You need to enter the arena and expose yourself for luck to find you and strike you.
Luck is an uncontrollable factor that will strike you without any notice but only when you are in the arena giving your best. You need to be present, everyday, trying, hitting, giving it all, and someday, sometime, without any announcement it will hit you. But you need to be there.
Some interesting reads on this topic (I will add more as I find them):
On life and time 