The Lucky

 

I just finished reading "The Last Lecture". It is a recent Christmas gift of Whit's from some dear friends and he has not yet read it. But Whit has developed an evil sounding cough that I am hoping not to acquire and so I have banished myself to the guest room for the past few nights. I have had trouble going to sleep and my solution has been to read until I am so tired that I cannot think of anything else at last but sleep.

This book has been fun to read for many inspiring and memorable reasons but the reason for this post has to do with luck.

I have known Whit since I was 15 and known of him years before that. He always seemed like an easy going, happy guy who people liked to be around. But when we stared dating and I was around his family more I learned that they considered him lucky. Good things just went his way it seemed and then I realized it was not just his family that felt that way but others.

So shortly after we were married and we had gone to Taiwan to teach English I decided that I would test this common explanation of why Whit's life seemed so great. I felt like we were on a completely equal playing field. No one knew me or Whit and we both needed a place to live, jobs, friends etc. It was time to see if luck would have him.

It did not take long to realize the secret to Whit's pocket full of rabbit's feet. When we would be searching the papers for jobs, I circled only the ones close by, good pay, good hours. Whit would come back through and double those circles sending us clear across town on a bus for interviews. When we were out walking the streets in pouring rain looking for red rent signs in peoples windows to try and find a place to live, I secretly wanted to quit and wait for a sunny day. Whit kept going. Basically he worked as hard as he could and left every door open. Then luck came.

In "The Last Lecture", Randy Pausch quotes Seneca a Roman Philosopher who said, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." That is what I think Whit's secret to his lucky life is. He may consciously not know he has a formula, and he has definitely seen defeat and what some would consider major bad luck but his life would seem to some as a lucky one and his attitude about it makes it seem so.

How did I get such a guy to marry me? What did he see in his sometimes cynical, sometimes impatient wife???? Now that must have been just pure luck. Yup, lucky me.