What is luck?
 

What is luck? I am probably in the top .1 percentile of the luck spectrum but that includes bad luck as well as good. I have so much luck that I started a spreadsheet awhile ago to keep track of it all. The challenge in making entries is defining luck.

Last night driving home was a clear example of good luck. 93 to 95 south has a great decreasing radius cloverleaf that I try to go through cleanly, at speed. Last night, no cars in either lane (rare) so I want to take it fast, Waze was off for some reason, accelerating into the decrease looking left through turn and all of sudden I see a state trooper out of the corner of my right eye. I then looked at the trooper in the car, our eyes met. Continued through the turn, was doing mid-60s through it with the BMW, now with 264K miles on it, though whole suspension is new. Could not believe no lights. Drove home slowly.

I think the speed limit is 35 through the cloverleaf.

What is luck? Are you lucky?


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States are different from another.....but in MI they have said that curve speeds are 'suggested' speeds.
I'm sure that if I crash or cause an accident while speeding through one that I would be ticketed.

Nice of the Officer to understand that you were in control.

I consider myself pretty lucky. It's not like I had a millionaire uncle leave me all his money or anything, but I feel like I've always been pretty lucky.

luck has no memory. ian fleming; casino royale

Right, If the speed limit on the white rectangular signs says 60, but then there's a corner/curve with a yellow diamond sign that says 35, then you aren't actually speeding unless you're going >60. The yellow signs are suggestions.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15348556/advisory-cornering-speeds-arent-made-up-numbers-except-when-they-are/

Same in CA. The yellow speed signs at curves are advisory. If the limit is 60 then it's 60. Reckless speed is at the discretion of the officer however. The thing I never do is cross or touch a solid painted line. Yellow in the lane or white at the shoulder are the same ticket. I always drive 10mph over any speed limit and don't get tickets

Well, all of us are lucky you’re here Shaun, but your trooper luck might have been more of he couldn’t get a speed read on you out of a corner, so just let it go.

I'm generally 5-10, although at times it may be a bit higher. Most of my drive to work is 75mph, but there are some spots where they drop it to 60 for "construction" (even if that just means that they've put up jersey barriers on the shoulder, but aren't actually doing anything), and then "in Houston" the speed drops to 60. I set my cruise at 83 and leave it there until I get off the Interstate. I run my cruise as much as possible, because if I didn't my speed would creep up.

Luck = Fate
Cheers

A couple weeks ago on Friday the 13th my luck ran out. Coming back from the mountains with empty car hauler trailer in tow my cheap ass chinese tires decided to lose air. 3 flats, 1 spare, no compressor. And a jury summons waiting in the mail! Other than that it was a lovely day

I think that 'good' luck comes into play when there's a positive outcome to a dicey situation that you have absolutely no control over.

I guess I was at least once...

I was drafted into the Army during the Vietnam war, completed basic training, then was sent directly to combat infantry training. Every company that preceded mine thru the training, down to the last man, was sent straight to Vietnam. Most of my company also went the same route, but a handful of us...me included...were assigned to stateside duty instead of being shipped overseas. So, instead of humping an M16 thru the jungle, I served out the rest of my 2 years working an office job in the 82nd Airborne division headquarters at Ft. Bragg, NC.

Lucky? I'll say it was! I've never depended on luck to pull me thru any situation ever again...I feel that I used up a lifetime's worth right then & there.

I have often said I must be the luckiest SOB who ever lived, because of all the stupid things I have done and got away with. Like the barn wall falling on me and waking away without a scratch.
Like heading out in a new S series International at about 5 AM and suddenly having the thought about how messed up the fiberglass front would be if a deer jumped in front of the truck. That freaked me out enough I slowed down and a big doe jumped out of the ditch and ran across the road.
Like sailing through white caps in an old 14 foot plywood skiff in November and finding out a few months later the boat had split along the keel due to rot.
Like falling in love at age 19 and still being deeply in love with the same woman 51 years later.
Lucky, I tell you.

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I’ve had good luck and bad luck, but I do believe in the adage, “The harder I work, the luckier I get “ I can’t account for the bad luck.

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Luck is a reflection of a certain degree of preparation

Luck favors the prepared

I think some people are incredibly lucky but most of us are not.

Just look at history. The only real option ordinary folks have is hard work.

Well heck.

A smoking hot chick picked up on me in 1987. She is quietly reading in the next room right now.

I was born in the 1960's. To a middle class family that understood investing and saving and the value of education.

None of my alcoholic friends have managed to kill me yet.

My children are healthy, beautiful, and like me.

My dog is better looking than yours and cries when I have been gone a little while.

I have lived in an amazing country 99.9% of my life.

I have owned THREE Porsches, an MGB, a full convertible K5 Blazer, a 63 Impala, 2 land cruisers, 3 F250's among my other cars.

I have MADE MONEY on my lifetime auto purchases.

I watched Mt. St. Helens blow up first hand and then made a mint cleaning up the ash.

I had a rewarding career.

I experienced Grunge first hand.

My investment track record is far better than the S&P500

Ken Kesey served me oven fried chicken.

I was at UO during the cocaine/alcohol fueled 1980's, and didn't get arrested, any STD's, or lasting trauma.

The list goes on and on.

Yeah. I'm lucky.

Luck comes with life ... both good and bad. Then you run out of all three.

We are all incredibly lucky ... some moreso than others in both extremes tho'...

A collie named "Lucky" sunk his tooth in next to my eye when I was around 5-6 years old. I was lucky too :)

I'm the luckiest person I know

Worked hard to make my own luck but the luckiest luck I've had was because of my wife :D

well there was that lucky hitch hike pick up in 1969 on I77. VW bus with several unattached ladies, good music and some herb. That was a good day

For the most part you make your own luck both good and bad.

It’s hard to detect good luck. It looks so much like something earned.

Like many people, I've always said I earned my luck; but I'm pragmatic enough to know that works both ways - good and bad.

However, being born tall, white, male and small-town American in the 1950's - that's either the luck of the draw or hard work in all my previous lives, as per Buddhism.

I agree, one earns ones luck. Notice how envious "unlucky" people are of you? And those people seem to be of the lazy variety. What a coincidence

^^^BINGO. I have a buddy who is ridiculously "unlucky." He created it.

Dixie's comment about good luck looking like something earned. Bad luck seems to be earned as well.

I think there might be some truth to the above; however I believe luck is how we choose to think about things. As in, there's nothing inherently good, or bad, happening in life. Stuff just happens. For example, maybe the bad luck of not getting a big promotion is actually good luck. If you got the job, perhaps you'd be working all the time causing your marriage to end in divorce.

Now karma is different. That's where people attract the energy they emit. Like if someone is hateful, they attract others that hate, or hate them.

Some people are incredibly lucky. For instance being born in the right family at the right time.

But often the "incredibly lucky" find a way to stuff it up.

quick note, I think I have a different definition of luck from many here. I don't subscribe to the you make your own luck philosophy, whether good or bad. Luck, by it's very definition (the one I follow) is independent of your actions. Will try to post more later on with examples. But for me, making your own luck is just planning. Good planning, bad planning... things happen because of what you did.

When you set cosmic tumblers into play, results are not luck.

Friday morning I cut hay. We baled it and got it into the barn Saturday evening. I had been thinking of topping up the fuel tank on the tractor before we baled, but knew there was enough. Next morning I refueled from a jug I had sitting and went about cutting trash around the edge of the field. After about 5 minutes use, the tractor lost power. Seemed to be fuel starvation. The filter was full of crap. Monday morning I got a couple of spare filters. I drained a bunch of fuel out of the tank, changed the filter, cleaned the housing, flushed the lines to the injection pump and started it up. All the time I was thinking, "Lucky I hadn't refueled when we had hay to bale."

I agree with you Shaun. My prime example...just look at the wives you guys have. That has GOT to be pure luck! SmileWavy

Or the wives we have gotten rid of!

I was waiting for this post. A wise person once said that the only luck that matters is "the luck of birth," being born when/where/who you were born to. I think about this often because it's the only luck that you truly have no say in or part of, (every other type of luck you at least had to make the choice of putting yourself in a certain place at a certain time). Your health, your looks, being born in the U.S. in the later 20th century with modern medicine and education opportunities, etc., etc...

Compare it to all of the people in the world throughout history and the odds of your birth are astronomical, to put it mildly. Sometimes I think that I've had too much luck in life, it's not always a good thing. But that's another conversation.

I once read somewhere that ‘luck’ will often seem to be present at the confluence of preparation and opportunity.

I am perhaps the most fortunate person on this side of the grass.

Used to kind of wierd me out, but I got used to it

A follow up on my bad fuel post. Had the mechanic in this morning. He listened to my account of the symptoms and took the cap off the fuel tank and advised me I had put gasoline into my diesel tractor. We drained everything out of the system, put in fresh diesel and it worked! I was afraid I had ruined the injection pump or the engine :eek:.
How gasoline got into my diesel jug, I have no idea. Luckily I dodged serious damage.

If there's still a post above mine from allan88, it has a spam link. I reported the post.

My credit union has an annual meeting, and at the end of the meeting they will hand out envelopes of cash. There's usually enough that there's a 25% - 50% chance that you're going to go home with an envelope. I've attended these meetings for almost 10 years, and I've never won one, and neither has my wife. I guess I don't have any luck. Or maybe it's rigged.

^^^ Got it, thanks. Missed it.

There are concrete behaviors and circumstance that enable luck and actions that inhibit luck's attendance.

Your right on that one.

In the 50's the chance of being born in America world wide was 17 to 1.
Being a tall, white male with blues eyes within that population get the odds even higher.