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Quote of the Day: Luck
“Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work – and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.” – Lucille Ball
Your experience might differ, but I find much wisdom in what Lucille Ball says. Good luck is not just chance. Rather it is recognizing and seizing an opportunity for which you are prepared due to prior hard work. Similarly, bad luck is frequently lack of preparation catching up to you.
Hard work and preparation by itself does not guarantee success. It does provide a solid foundation and launch pad when opportunities arise. An opportunity has to arise, but opportunities are like streetcars. They show up all the time. You do have to recognize them when they appear and accept that the one currently available may not be available again if you let it pass. That is what Ball means when talks about realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.
It is not luck, though. It is opportunity realized.
Published in Group Writing
World Chess Champion Jose Raul Capablanca once quipped in the early 20th Century “The good player is always lucky.” This was in response to a common gripe in the chess world that “my opponent only won because he got lucky,” which doesn’t make much sense given that the game of chess does not involve chance.
I think we may have a serious and dangerous problem with this today.
President Trump was the first, at least in my recognition, to accuse the public media of delivering fake news. There may have been others but he raised fake news awareness to a national or international level. Now it is recognizable as the norm.
Now we have major players who have embraced fake news as the norm entering the arena of Artificial Intelligence (AI), so what can we expect? Will we be witnessing individuals devoting themselves to a life of hard work based on false premises?
I’ve been a game player for many decades and one thing I’ve learned is that I’m not “lucky,” meaning that I seem to lack the gift of getting that one dice roll that I need to win, or drawing that one card that I need to win, etc. Plain, simple, dumb luck – the kind that’s needed to win a church raffle or a state lottery – is not something that God graced me with. Instead, I’ve learned to think through decisions more thoroughly and make better choices. On the whole, I think that learned skill has stood me well in life, probably much better than being lucky would have done.
I don’t believe in “luck,” per se, but there have been many days when literally everything that could go wrong did, and although I don’t believe in the pagan gods, I can certainly understand why so many ancient peoples thought there were beings out there who were tripping people up and just generally amusing themselves at their expense. :) :) :)
Bad luck and trouble’s been my only friend. I’ve been down ever since I was ten. Born under a bad sign.
So with all that, I’m still here on God’s earth, happy some days, healthy most, and rarely in a desperate fight. Now that is good luck.
If one simply must believe, then believing in pagan gods isn’t the worst one can do.
Well, if nothing else, all of us are lucky that Lucille Ball existed, because otherwise there would probably be no Star Trek.
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And that Thomas Sowell quote too.
What? That sounds like an interesting story, one I am not at all familiar with.
Pls elaborate if you have the time soon.
You didn’t know that it was Desilu Studios – Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball – who started up with Star Trek and stuck with it even after the first pilot wasn’t accepted by NBC? Lucy showed up on-set occasionally herself, and reputedly helped with sweeping sand for an episode, as I recall.
https://www.startrek.com/news/how-lucille-ball-helped-star-trek-become-a-cultural-icon
That is very interesting. Ty.
I thought I knew almost all there was to know about Lucy and Desi. Including how the network tried to tell her that her TV spouse should be someone “with more acting experience.” (Meaning: anyone but a hispanic.)
Of course the redhead adamantly opposed the network execs’ attitudes.
But most convincing of all for the execs were the reviews from those members of the public who had been invited to view the pilot. The audience was off the charts in wanting Desi. So the studio backed down and Desi stayed.
Is it lucky to have been born in the US? I feel pretty lucky for all sorts of circumstances that are beyond my control, but maybe luck isn’t the right word. Probably blessed.
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This post is part of the Quote of the Day group writing project at Ricochet. Please join us and signup here for May!
President Reagan is reported to have said: “If you’re lucky enough to have been born in America, you’re lucky enough.” I have searched for confirmation that he said that and cannot find it. However, it sounds so much like something The Gipper would have said that I decided I would just go ahead and add it to the mix. It is very similar to many of the things we know he said, and it fits his sunny optimism about America and his unabashed love of his country which showed in everything he did. Writing this reminds me once again how very much I miss him, especially in these dreary and depressing days of what pretends to be the current “Presidency.” I have a very old Reagan For President T-Shirt I wear when walking the beach and it never fails to get comments like “We really need him now, don’t we?” — even from people of a much younger generation. If someone knows of a firm attribution of this phrase to President Reagan, I sure would appreciate receiving it.
Thinking of yourself as lucky is a lower grade form of gratitude.
Well, one can – and should – feel grateful for being lucky.
Whether Reagan said or not, it’s true. Being born in America is to have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth. It’s up to you whether you accept it or spit it out.
I’ve never been a fan of Lucille Ball’s comedic work. But I was aware that there was more to her than that. She was a tough executive, who only took over DesiLu when her then ex-husband, Desi Arnez started drinking and gambling so much he was about to sink the whole enterprise which he had built up.
And of course letting him continue running it into the ground would have brought her down also.
And regarding her comedy, I have gone back and watched old episodes of I Love Lucy and even as I watch them without being particularly amused, I can see how skilled she was in performing her craft.
I’ve read that she was a perfectionist. She spent hours rehearsing and peparing for those live shows. She admitted she was not naturally funny, that when you watched Lucy Ricardo on the small screen, you were not seeing the real Lucille Ball.
I’ve watched her on YouTube doing some old talk shows, and she was actually a crabby woman especially as she got older. But I’ve also heard testimonials from people who she helped in the industry. Carol Burnett is just one example (someone else I don’t find funny, but I admire). But that makes sense. Buster Keaton did the same thing for her. She asked and received help from him in adopting her own comedic slapstick style.
So yes, she lived that quote.
I do find her funny though I think Desi Arnaz is very underrated for his performances on that series. I am also not sure what naturally funny is. I believe most standups and comedic actors have to work and practice very hard to seem natural and easy in front of an audience.
It takes a lot of work and practice to be able to convincingly fake being spontaneous. :-)
Whenever someone discusses “luck” I always recall the Henry Kuttner short story, “Housing Problem.”
It’s a quick read. Essentially the story is about a cage that a man keeps where some kind of fairies live. They pay rent by giving the owner good luck. That is, he would be walking along and find a $20 bill on the ground, or the horse he bets on wins, or something like that.
For reasons explained in the
bookshort story, some meddlers interfere and cause the fairies to move out. The owner quits the house and it’s left to the meddling couple. The problem is that now the place is occupied by low class fairies. They pay their rent, but the luck is of the form that they would be walking along and an anvil falls out of a building and misses them by inches. Sure, it’s pretty lucky, but not the kind of luck you really want.The old adage is “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”
Yep.
I love all these quotes. Growing up out in rural Oregon that was largely how people viewed achieving success. I moved to the Seattle area 14 years ago for work and a girlfriend and its the first place I’ve met people who scorn the idea of hard work leading to success; the progressive types. Ironically, many of them are very financially successful through hard work combined with understanding how to spot opportunity. But many had successful parents and had opportunity others didn’t and so that opens the door for cultural Marxist arguments that sure that worked for you because you have all these advantages, but it doesn’t work for everyone (with the obligatory ‘especially people of color.’) I suppose the first part is true for Hunter Biden, he has a nack for failing up. I understand why they’re vulnerable to this argument; they don’t feel like they had to work that hard. Most likely they dont know anyone outside of that bubble either. But still for most, especially outside of the corporate and government careerists, they’ve had to work very hard to achieve their success. I’ve gotten the privilege to meet so many of you who have built whole businesses out of nothing and it truly is inspiring.
It’s not just Hunter, Joe has been failing upward for decades too.
A person of true faith sees blessing (that, you might say, contains an aspect of good luck) in everything. In other words, for such a person, there is no bad luck, but rather an important lesson to be learned from unfortunate circumstances or events.
Semantics.
Except that a blessing comes from God, who is “kind in all His deeds.” (Psalm 145). Knowing this broadens the definition of blessing way beyond that of luck.
Or even simpler, if you believe God created the universe, then obviously God created “luck” too.