What does it mean to be lucky?

What exactly is luck? Luck is just another word for timing. If you are in the right place, at the right time, with the right people, you are lucky. If the place, timing, or people are wrong, then you are unlucky. This definition of luck makes it circumstantial and less deterministic. It also means that being lucky is a waiting game. You must wait for the right conditions to make your move. 

This characterisation makes luck less a providential whim and puts the onus on the individual to be alert and constantly on the lookout for opportune occurrences. It also presupposes that lucky circumstances present themselves several times in one’s lifetime. It is clearly up to the individual to realize when the time, place and people are right for affirmative action.

But how does one know that the time, place, and people are right? This is where intuition comes into play. It is not something you ‘figure out’. You just know it, in your bones. Intuition is described as the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning. 

Listening to that little voice in your head with all your heart will let you know when the harvest is ripe for the picking. Providence gives everyone a second, even many chances. If you have not utilised opportunities prudently, do not blame providence for your miseries.

You can think of at least half a dozen opportunities that you were given to improve your lot. If you have squandered and ended up a loser, don’t blame bad luck at birth. This is simply rationalising stupidity. 

The very same favourable circumstances (in varying forms) are presented to you again and again. But money, influence, and the good life that these wonderful opportunities provide must make you grateful and industrious. Instead, if you became a slacker, grandiose, and derelict it is you who wasted away the blessings. Not bad luck. And it is also true that your loss was someone else’s gain. Someone more deserving perhaps? 

When a stroke of good luck or a windfall makes one grateful, this individual will naturally consolidate gains and build on them. There is nothing sinful in being a little indulgent with money when one can easily afford it. But many of us take good luck for granted. That is when misfortune befalls us.