I was having a conversation with someone the other night and the subject of luck came up. How some people are just lucky. The person I was talking to felt he was in that camp. He had a ton of examples (though he just shared one) that demonstrated how this concept of luck was operating in his life.
After listening to his tale, that indeed did grant him access to the lucky club, I felt like perhaps when we ascribe our lives and livelihoods to just luck we might be dissing the spiritual principles that seem to operate in our lives.
We discussed that idea a little and both landed on that there has to be something operating in this life besides just luck. Some sort of undercurrent of blessing that seems indiscriminate.
I know a woman who says she is blessed and favored. And I like that but it also still leaves something lacking for me. I mean, I just can’t get behind a spiritual deity who blesses and favors some but not others. For me, if there is any such thing, there has to be indiscriminate kindness and blessing and favoring. Otherwise, it all just feels too random for me. Some people are worthy, but others aren’t?
I do not believe that luck comes only to just those that are pious and righteous. No this concept of luck happens to everyone. I guess it is just how we look at it. I mean I do know some people who are just touched in a way that they win things. Like that happens to them more than other people. If there is a raffle, or prize, they are gonna win every time. I am not one of those people, but I can tell you that when I am going to win, I know it before I buy the ticket. Which is a weird phenomenon that has occurred all my life. Sometimes I just know things, weird things, things that are unknowable, and yet I know them.
So I guess for me it goes back to the basics. We are all here, getting a chance to do this whole life and living thing and that feels pretty lucky. And some of us have a much harder go at that than others. But well into middle age, I can say that life is about what you do with what happens to you, not really so much what happens. I mean what happens is important, life alteringly important actually. But it is what we do with the perils and pitfalls, the disappointments, the abuse, the unkindness, the hurt, the agony and the unfairness that really makes a life worth living.
So this concept of luck kind of falls flat for me, except with things like winning the lottery and raffles. Then I do believe. Which is probably why I rarely win. I am sure that winning these types of events only happens to the “lucky” and I am not in that particular club. So therefore, I do not win. I do believe that if I could change my mindset around this, I might have a better chance of winning. But I also know that the universe doesn’t really seem to want me to have millions of dollars. I think we all know, I would likely be a total asshole.
I guess what comes up for me this morning is this idea of grace rather than luck. I do believe in grace. I named my daughter that. I felt like my being kind of struck sober and then given this life of sober time was grace. And I promised the powers that be if I ever had a daughter, I would honor her with the name of what I was given.
For me, grace is best defined as undeserved merit. And my sobriety and my daughter are two things that I definitely did not deserve. But I have them nonetheless and I cherish them both. I will let you sort out which one I value more...
And perhaps this concept of grace works better for me than this idea of luck. Grace explains so much of what I believe has happened to me. There is some sort of divine purpose for us all, and the grace happens when we align ourselves with that purpose and attempt to do it well. Notice I said, attempt, because we are all human and just as likely to fuck it up completely.
So going back to my conversation the other night, I could feel on a deep level the amount of grace this person had in his life. He was a walking, talking example of the goodness in this world, manifesting in him, showing him his purpose, his path. What he described as lucky, I saw as grace. Is he a perfect person? No, partly because that person doesn’t exist. We all fuck things up, repeatedly. But people who value the grace they have been given, take their fuck ups hard and use them as catalysts for change. They answer the call I believe we all are tasked with, “Can I do better?” And the people who give a resounding, “fuck yes!” and then begin to follow a path that will surely lead to better version of themselves, are the ones spilling grace everywhere. And this is the best kind of spillage, because others are benefitted when the fruits of their laborious efforts to better themselves splashes onto others along the way.
I believe, these people kind of shed grace. But in my experience, a kind of lack of worth, a fundamental idea that they are somehow not worthy of all they have been given, worked for and held pervades the “luckiest” people. I think their lives and “luck” create this disconnection between who they are and what they accomplish in this life. And to me, grace kind of levels that playing field. When you are lucky, it draw forward an idea that the fact that you are receiving whatever blessing you are receiving, is unearned, meritless. Almost like you are getting something you do not deserve and therefore should not really appreciate it. But grace, this idea that is is all undeserved merit, for me at least, creates this idea that we are all out here living and being blessed with shit we didn’t earn. It is just bestowed upon us because we are here, living, trying and doing our best to be better than we were the day before.
So are we really lucky? Sure. I think so. But I think we are more sprinkled with grace which results in favorable things happening to us. And our ability to appreciate the luck or the grace, is the best measure of a person’s spiritual development. If you think you earned it, you don’t have it. If you are absolutely sure you didn’t, then you likely did. I know, this paradoxical effect seems complicated and arbitrary. But for me, anyway, I believe in the goodness of people. That all of us are basically good but we all fuck it up in our pursuit of things that take the edge off, provide us what we demand and/or need. The cycles of addiction - life’s treatment for trauma - fucks us up every time.
And to wrap this piece up, I have to own that it is only when I address my underlying issues of never being satisfied or needing or wanting more than my share of things that are better left in small doses, that I walk directly out of the reign of grace/luck and right into a self imposed crisis that is sure to level me once more.
Going back to my conversation of the other night, as we were talking I felt like I was lifted above both our lives, looking down and seeing all the grace that each of us experienced and our profound belief on some level that neither of us deserved what we had been given. And feeling, that he and I were there at this dinner, talking and enjoying whatever benevolence that had led us that far. And that felt pretty lucky to me.
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