I have been considering the nature of luck lately. By many measures, the Carey family has hit a run of bad luck in 2015—Ally was hospitalized with pneumonia and complications twice, our elderly cars are feeling their mortality, I lost my job in February, and last week the Subaru was dealt a fatal blow when it was rear-ended, sending Ally to the doctor with a concussion. We've faced numerous setbacks and difficulties, but the first six months of 2015 have presented unusual challenges. So, I've been thinking about good fortune, the caprice of the universe, serendipity.
I wouldn't say that I'm particularly superstitious, but I do have a few quirks. One of them is lucky pennies...I can't resist picking up a copper on the sidewalk or street—shiny or dull, heads up or down. I love the feeling that somehow fate is smiling down on me—that singular moment of gratification when I discover a coin and pocket it. It lightens my mood and my outlook for the day, regardless of whether the notion of luck holds true, it is still found money, though tiny increments. Those increments add up over time—we have a container full of found coins (mostly pennies) from the last 5 years—it is nearly full, heavy with promise and fortune. A lucky find amortized over the years. A small offering in the vast expanse of the universe.
Much of nature tends toward balance and symmetry—from butterflies to snowflakes, spiderwebs to galaxies, the universe seems to favor order over chaos. Those who believe in karma would speculate over our past actions, karma being a law of moral causation, what might we have done to be faced with our state? I choose to believe that our current run of luck is nature’s method of ensuring our growth and development, a nudge in the direction of our future prosperity and happiness.
This natural alignment leads me back to our string of bad luck—and wondering if luck is really just how you perceive your current circumstances—an exercise in practicing affirmation for what we have, measuring our situation with a hopeful attitude. It’s not always easy, but I daily remind myself of our good fortune in supportive and generous family and friends who have offered us encouragement and endorsement, assurance and blessing.
So I attempt to view this in a positive light. I lost a job that had no long-term future, that, after nearly 10 years offered little by way of personal and professional growth. Not having a job over the past few months has offered opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise enjoy—rare days with my family, attending all of the events that were the last hurrah of Megan’s senior year, time spent on long walks with friends without concern for being elsewhere. One forgets the boon of free time in the chaos of work obligations. Losing my job allowed me to spend a full two weeks with my parents, siblings, and our children in Avalon, NJ—a yearly gathering that I have squeezed into weekends for the past ten years—I cannot place a value on the time spent under one roof again enjoying the company of the people I love the best.
Change comes daily—slowly or suddenly—all we can do is respond to it with our best efforts, understanding that, as John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.” And yes, though the world loves symmetry, it devolves into chaos pretty regularly—the regular intervals of ocean waves break on the shore to the circulating grains of sand, the Fibonacci sphere of a dandelion casts its seeds to the wind, the dramatic circulation of a tornado leads to devastation.
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Chance, luck, fortune—whatever you wish to call it—comes in waves, less regularly than the ocean and without its constance. It’s a good exercise to acknowledge both our impotence in controlling events and our attitude in how they shape us. When Louis Pasteur wrote, “Chance favors the prepared mind,” he was speaking of scientific observation, but I have always felt that he believed that luck is partly attitude. If fate is a whimsy of the cosmos, good luck lies mostly in our perspective and openness to change. I choose to view this year’s luck as a reminder that fate has mostly cast its favor on the Carey family and to try practice gratitude for our blessings. I am not always successful, but I shall keep trying. And I’ll keep picking up those pennies.