How Much Does Luck Decide Our Lives?

Believing that many of the big things in our lives come down to luck is, in a way, a rather insulting thought. We put so much effort into controlling our own destinies. Nevertheless, a wise life is one in which we accept how much lies outside of our control, for good and ill - and where we make a gracious accommodation with the terrifying power of Luck.

FURTHER READING

”We don’t anymore nowadays much believe in Luck – or what was, in earlier ages, known as Fortune. We would think it extremely suspicious if someone explained that they had been sacked, but added that this was simply the result of ‘bad luck’. And we would think it equally strange if someone said they had made a fortune, but ascribed their triumph to mere ‘good luck’. We resist the notion that luck can play a significant role as much in our failures as in our successes. Luck is a substantial offence against modern ideals of control, strategy and foresight. We understand ourselves to be – for better and for worse – the authors of our own destinies.”

MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE

Watch more films on SELF in our playlist:

SOCIAL MEDIA

Feel free to follow us at the links below:

CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Avi Ofer

[TheSwansfan]

Something I have learned from taking calls on a suicide/crisis support line is that we are all just one step away from something which could turn our life upside down. An accident, a diagnosis, the death or debilitation of someone significant. The more people boast about their status, wealth or how wonderful their children are compared to others, the less they understand how much pure dumb luck played a part in their success. You can control a lot of your life but there will always be an element of sheer luck, good or bad, which plays a part.

[Seediya]

As captain Jean-Luc Picard said: “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life."

[adnantariq]

So bloody true. A wise man looked long and hard at life n said, “I don’t care if I’m good, I just hope I’m lucky”

[asahdo]

A book I would highly recommend on this subject is Creating Freedom by Raoul Martinez. He argues that pretty much everything in our lives is down to luck and therefore nobody 'deserves' anything - neither their rewards or punishments. Even if you could prove that some people were simply lazier than other people, it still comes down to luck because at the end of the day of you were given the option to choose which personality traits you could have, nobody would want to choose laziness.

[melihekinci]

Answer is luck decides almost all of our lives. Ibn Khaldun said "Geography is destiny". It is one of the most true depictions of the world for me. Our lives depend on which country we born, which parents we are given to. These are not decisions we can make but it is given to us by complete chance. The rest of our lives depends on chance. Thus, geography is destiny.

[Mang_ulil]

our intellegent is luck
our parent is luck
our neighborhood is luck

your success is 90% luck

[sebastianelytron]

The only difference between good and bad luck is we recognize, scrutinize, and never forget our bad luck. When good luck happens, we either don't notice it or quickly forget it. In the end, it all really evens out.

[torigoth]

It's people's growing egos that stopped us from believing in luck.

[stevenleung]

The world is never "fair", and won't ever be.

[bsqries]

Life is about luck
Been atthe right place at the right time
Meeting the right people

[birichinaxox]

So much of life is out of our control. How ppl treat us. If you are born into a functioning family. If ppl choose you for the job even though you have worked soo hard and have more experience they give it to someone they are friends with. So broken.

[metacritiqebyrajan]

we still believe in luck when the result is near to us or about to be declared but after the result, we either believe in our efforts for success or give ourselves consolation for failure

[thebrokenlens]

1:49 narrates: "We make 'small' mistakes all the time"
*GUY HANGS HIMSELF IN THE BACKGROUND!

[heraldojacques]

The fact that so much of our failures and successes rely on luck should either make us super grateful and humble for what we have achieved and resilient for when we fail.

It's very helpful when we remind ourselves of that so that we can stop pumping our chest or beating ourselves up

[heathliam]

Luck does play a massive role in our daily lives. What's crucial to understand though is that instead of focusing too much on the outcome, we must divert our attention the process. You can't control the outcome but you definitely control the process.

[heraldojacques]

Hard work and effort doesn't guarantee results (or immediate results) by but working hard and making efforts you still give yourself a chance to succeed.

[MagpieRomanticArts]

The word luck itself creates this concept that feels almost something you can gain or lose, instead of the reality that we have very little control of things in the world, and instead can only control how we perceive the world. Events occur. Luck suggests they must be fortunate or bad, but if you strip that concept away, you're left with events and how you perceive, adapt, and cope.

I do love the mirror at the end. I hope we can all learn to be more forgiving of ourselves and enjoy the journey of life. <3

[ChessMasteryOfficial]

*Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith!*

[matthewharris]

Luck and choice do play a role, but circumstance (where you were born, what sex you were born, race, financial situation etc) that's what dictates our lives above all.

[theknight-gyni]

I met a lot of homeless people, some of them were successful in life in of course this world standard, they were also hard workers. However bad luck happens to people and its clearly not their fault.