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How Lucky Are You?

The other day, Roy was thinking back to a conversation with his mum. She had said to him, "Your sister always seems to be amazed at how lucky you are. Nothing bad ever happened to you. But your sister! Everything always goes wrong. She always asks what is the next disaster around the corner. She struggles with her job, she works so hard she doesn't have time to make friends, she never has enough money. And her house! Well, her house is falling apart, the builders are still there. I could go on and on." Roy thought that his mother had gone on and on and on. Now, Roy was never one to take much notice of luck. He had an okay job, a house, a car, a family, and he would have wanted a bit more money and time just like everyone else. But Roy's mum got him thinking about luck. He had heard that some people put the state of their luck down to Fate or God. His mother-in-law, a good but guilt-ridden basically unhappy lady, would always say, "That's what God sent you" to his kids when something bad happened to them. Roy also heard that some Eastern religions said that luck today is caused by rights or wrongs committed in a previous life. Bad luck never bothered Roy, even the time he got knocked off his moped. He was one of those people who would feel lucky. He would get on optimistically with life and expect the best of people and know that things will turn out the way they are envisaged and thought about in the end. He would also make the best out of everything, even if things sometimes had not turned out quite as well for him as he hoped. Usually when less good things happened he would take a breath, step back and think whether there's a better way and ask himself "what am I going to do to sort it?". He might share his thoughts with his wife until something different happened such as their child doing something amusing or the dog pestering Roy to throw a ball for it. Roy's attention was demanded by too may other people and things to spend time dwelling on problems. His response when something wasn't quite going right for him was to continue getting on with things and enjoying life and following his instinct which would show him the way to arrive at something better. Roy didn't like the idea that he got knocked off his bike by God. This made God vengeful and this contradicted Roy's optimistic understanding of the world. Roy also thought that his veering into the road in front of a car was a more likely cause of the accident and that it was actually the car and not God that knocked him off. The Eastern explanation didn't help him either because he didn't think he had lived before and he didnt feel that his past actions meant that he deserved to

be in an accident. Roy stopped bothering to worry about what caused luck and walked to the pub noting that he was happy still to have the use of his legs after his accident. Still thinking about luck, Roy was discussing it over a pint with his mate Barry. Barry told Roy that Napoleon, when assessing a man, would always ask "Is he lucky?". To Roy that this was a silly question because the answer would depend on what you think is lucky and what examples of good luck you give. Barry knew more. "What Napoleon really was asking is whether the guy makes his own luck.". "That makes more sense" Roy thought, "but luck is still a matter of perspective."

Roy thought about his life and his sister's and their states of luck. He felt lucky and his sister didn't. Roy was usually in an optimistic mood and was happy with what he had. His sister was always shattered and expected more bad luck. Did each of them make their own state of luck? You, how lucky are you?