Leahey.org

There is an old Irish saying “The harder I work, the luckier I get”.

At least, when I heard it it was an old Irish saying. It has probably been said by many.

A recent situation had me questioning whether one person can be lucky or unlucky. In the course of a three-week period: my basement flooded, my washing machine broke, my dishwasher broke, my main drain pipe cracked, my kitchen fan stopped working, my oven ceased to function and my roof sprung a leak. I definitely felt like someone; the fates, a gypsy, someone in possession of a voodoo doll in my likeness, had it in for me.

I then decided to attempt to attack the problem logically, and I came up with the following conclusion:

Any perceived luck or lack of luck is just a product of circumstance, coincidence, or a combination of the two.

My basement flooded because I neglected to fix problems I knew I had with my gutters and downspouts. I saw them, and I put them off. So luck did not come in to play here.

My washing machine broke, okay, I hadn’t neglected it. However, it had been acting strange as of late. There were extra clicks when I would start a cycle, and again I failed to act on the signs of its wear. I should have called in a repairman previous to it actually breaking, but I didn’t, so again no luck to be found here.

My dishwasher began smoking and giving off an obvious odor of plastic burning. When I pulled it out from the wall, I saw immediately what the problem was. The socket which it was plugged in to was not grounded properly, so it had overheated and melted the plastic around it. Again, my fault, I installed it. I should have insured it was rated for high voltage and heat. No luck involved here.

The drain pipe cracked, the oven stopped working and the fan broke because they were old, and had been well-used. My roof leaked for the same reason. Again, no luck to be found here.

So, while circumstances and chance may seem to not be going your way, you can turn it around. You can look at it from the perspective that if everything “breaks” at once, you’ll replace or repair them, and you’ll have a longer period of break-free time. There is no such thing as luck, or unluck.

This can all be applied to every aspect of your life. Give it a try.