What You Need to Know About Luck
The ultimate secrets about the energy of luck
Luck is the intangible factor successful people manifest. What is it and how can we cultivate it in how we live and all we do?
America’s Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, once said, “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” And Paul J. Meyers, one of the world’s leading authority and pioneer of the self-improvement industry, coached ‘opportunities are captured’ by those who “construct determination with sustained effort, controlled attention, and concentrated energy.”
From historical leaders to modern trailblazers, when it comes to pursuing our dreams, we learned three elements of success from all the greats:
- Firstly, courage, determination, and persistence are omnipresent and essential ingredients;
- Secondly, for dreams to come true, you must have a plan, specific base conditions must be met, and a level of effort must be applied over time;
- Lastly, we infer in the recipe of success that opportunities exist outside of us, as something to find, to be prepared for, and as Myers suggested,’to capture’.
We are taught opportunities exist outside of us
It is the last and perhaps the most intangible of these three elements of success I’d like to expound. When in this mindset, we arrive at the belief that sometimes getting what we want involves a stroke of luck, a blessing, a golden break; it involves things that reside outside of us.
Hence, from Sun Tzu to Tolstoy, time and patience have long been praised as noble virtues and considered to be the mighty warriors in the journey of dreams and in the pursuit of this “break” or “luck”.
Unfortunately, if the essence is misunderstood or misapplied, it has the ability to morph into the unsuspected robbers of our time and happiness. Like conmen, they can obfuscate the universal truth of abundance, and instead, have us foolishly seeking and waiting.
But, is it foolishness or simply how we invite afflictions into our life?
In the obsession and preoccupation of seeking, we toil endlessly over our goal, finding in the process the close company of fear, anxiety, and worry (often associated with the first element of success).
“When someone seeks,” said Herman Hesse in Siddhartha, “then it easily happens that their eyes see only the thing that they seek, and they are therefore able to find nothing, to take in nothing because they always think only about the thing he is seeking. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”
Have you ever decided to buy a particular car and suddenly you see them everywhere on the road around you?
And in waiting, time has us sitting idly with its cousin patience, on the sideline of our life for that someday when the perfection of time and conditions meet for our long-awaited lucky break to do, to act, to live. Yet, ‘someday’ is an illusion. The fact is: we won’t know if tomorrow will be here to greet us, or if instead, impermanence will arrive first at our doorsteps.
We find nothing of pure potential when we seek
It is here- between the unceasing effort of seeking and the illusion of time- is why many of us find ourselves unhappy and unfulfilled. We toil, we compare, and we wait for that something- for anything and everything- to happen outside of us, as the validation we need to continue in this distressing cycle. Cynicism builds, mistrust and a feeling of victimization grows like weeds. Our thinking minds attempt to control the things we cannot: the external, and neglect to catalyze the very thing we can: our true internal self.
Yet, if we slowed down, way down-enough to observe nature’s heartbeat, we realize the opposite is true. Nature shows us that infinite abundance is within the essence of every being. And time is not a fixed, linear absolute, but rather a relative concept.
Abundance comes from attention and expectation
“Affluence, unboundedness, and abundance are our natural states. We need only to restore the memory of what we already know.”- Deepak Chopra
From the lush, fragrant forests to the vibrant, bountiful orchards, we can witness nature’s abundance in all its glory. And, from the reverberating laughter of unbounded joy to the exquisite taste of a nourishing meal, we can experience this abundance all around us. Everywhere we perceive scarcity, we have the opportunity to embrace and experience abundance by our choosing. And time, verbal construct humanity has assigned to give reference to the present moment, exists to support the unfolding of this abundance. Time is but a shadow of the different moments, not a factor, a complete or total representation of substance within.
“Every large tree grows from a tiny seed, and within the many fruits that bears, there are countless more seeds.” — Dharma Master Cheng Yen
For example, pepper is both the past and the present. Given the right conditions of sunlight, soil, of water, and air, a once-tiny seemingly small and insignificant seed within will grow into its full potential, a mature pepper plant. This little seed represents the full potential of a pepper plant, of its real being. In this way, the seed within is the source of the pepper’s infinite abundance.
Beyond the limitation of our sense, the seed, and the pepper are of the same. Just because we can’t see into the pepper, it doesn’t mean the seed isn’t there; and vice versa, because we can only see a seed, it does not imply a pepper plant does not exist.
And like time, the seed is neither the past nor future; it is both together, at once. The entire being of the plant is everything between the water and the air, of light and soil, of the visible and the invisible. The seed is separate from the plant, and the plant is separate from the fruit only by the shadow of time. In its core substance, it is all of the same: eternal and abundant.
In everyone contains the possible, the hidden, the developing
We can think of ourselves in this same way. Our very existence encompasses both the past and the future. In this moment, we are of our many histories, both genetic and ecosystem histories, as well as the potential of everything we might be. Like the seed, we are the source of our infinite abundance, lacking nothing. The fullness of our being lies deep within consciousness, beyond the mind, in our unchanging spirit. Time exists for us to manifest this substance, our eternal becoming.
In such a manner, today already contains the future.
In the wilted leaves, we find nutrients for life; in newborns, we find death; and in death, we find eternal life. The future has already arrived; in everyone contains the possible, the hidden, the developing. No one is imperfect, broken, or slowly developing towards perfection.
We are already perfect, radiant, and divine; in all judgments contains vulnerability, in all failures contains resilience, and in all sins contain grace. Just as in gratitude, we find the greatest blessing, in contentment the greatest wealth, and in understanding the greatest insights. Everything coexists together in perfection, in oneness. Life is death, and death is life. For that reason, fear can sometimes seem like excitement, sorrow like serenity, and lust like love. And so, in one of anything, we can find the opposite to be true.
If this wholeness, this roundness, this oneness can be found in everything, then it requires only our acknowledgment and willingness to accept everything as is, including ourselves, with love, to experience abundance fully in our lives.
Opportunities do not exist outside of us, it is within.
If we see life this way, we can embrace the concept that success or abundance is our birthright. And in this respite, break free from the shackles of time to pursue our dreams, knowing no person or thing is stopping us but ourselves. We can take full responsibility and accountability for ourselves to create whatever it is we dream. We begin to realize it is fruitless to live with sorrowful regrets of the past or trouble ourselves with worries of the future. In the pursuit of joy, there is no longer a need to wait nor to be controlled by time. Because, like the pepper, in the seed of our spirit, we already have everything we need to achieve whatever we desire.
Simply put, we are luck: lessons upon corrected knowledge.
So, any time is a great time. The present moment is the best time- to start, to end, to love, to forgive, to pursue, to let go, to quit, to find, or whatever may be locking up our potential from breaking free. When we cultivate the right conditions for success- of right understanding, thought, speech, action, effort, livelihood, mindfulness, and concentration, then we too can blossom into potential. Never worrying about lack, never dependent upon external conditions, never needing to compare for validation, and never being restricted by the limiting view of impossibility.
Now, when you look at yourself, what do you see? Are you the child, the adolescent, or the adult? Or, are you neither and yet all of it, altogether?
These inaccurate beliefs about opportunities existing outside of us prevents us from experiencing the fullness of life. They are the convenient excuses our mind employs to keep us in our current circumstances. In your core substance, you already have everything you need. You behold the abundance that surrounds you and the pathway to a lucky life is open.
So, in pursuing the highest vision of yourself, what are you still waiting for?
Read more about how I quit my dream job as a successful Silicon Valley executive to become a soul-seated journeyer of service. Follow me to be the first to see my stories. You can also find me on LinkedIn and Instagram.
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