Luck You
The majority of life is luck. Our parents and their parents meeting was all by pure chance. I hope that you were lucky to have good parents. My daughter is lucky that I met her mother. I'm also lucky that I won the time and geography lotto. Don't have to fight in wars and there is very little danger around my place of birth. We are all very lucky that we weren't aborted. I'm often asked why I came to Japan and I reply because of pure chance. It was never my intention to come to Osaka. The opportunity just came. My daughter is not only lucky, but she is super super lucky! There are a lot of Japanese women around I could have ended up with anybody. Most of my high paying teaching jobs I was lucky to get. A friend of a friend of a friend connections. Sometimes I get lucky to get a seat on the subway during morning rush hour. It's not as though a sky ghost loves me and wanted me to have that seat. You can also increase your luck. Showering and dressing nice increases your odds of attracting somebody. Even just leaving the house increases your luck substantially to meeting someone. Reading a poker book will give you skills to increase your chances of winning. The opposite also occurs. Try finding a girlfriend or boyfriend when you dress like a mendicant. I guess you can meet someone without leaving your residence because now we have the internet. Anyway you know what I mean. There is no God or Gods that have a plan for us.
Girls born in an area where Islam is the norm are SOL. Terrible luck. Boys too because the majority of them are sexually frustrated when they get older. They did not win the geography lotto. Most people believe their religions because of where they were born. Yes, Muslims, Hindus,Christians and Buddhists etc believe what they do because of luck. I was raised Christian because of the sheerest accident to be born to Christ believing parents. I thought everyone in the world was Christian. Then once I grew up there was no need to have an imaginary friend. I sometimes get accosted when walking down the street by bible thumpers. There's no reasoning with them. People aren't reasoned into religion so its difficult to reason them out of it. They are proselytized as children and once again children will believe anything.
The biggest lotto win I ever had was $2575 ( can ) playing keno. I matched 5 numbers out of 5 and the feeling was great. Trying to cash the ticket was a pain, but it all worked out in the end. I've won a few times matching 5 out of 5, but was only betting $1 a draw and if you match all of the you win $500. That particular day I started drinking mid afternoon and whenever I drink I bet more. By evening I was betting $5 a draw and got lucky. Pure dumb luck. Countless times I played the lotto for million dollar jackpots and the most I won was around $60. Winning millions would be such a wonderful feeling. Some very lucky people do win, but I've tried soooooo many times and can be relatively certain that I will never ever win $1 000 000. The difference between odds of1/ 10000 and 1/ 7 000 000 is too huge. To the people that do win I congratulate you. Just hope you don't go broke in a couple of years.
Does wearing a seat belt increase your odds of living or does it have the reverse effect? Will some people drive faster if they are wearing a seat belt? What if there was a metal spike put on the steering wheel pointed at the driver? How fast do you think he would be driving? Guaranteed he or she would be taking them corners real slow. Last month there was a plane crash where the pilot committed suicide and took almost 150 people with him. You've heard about this incident I'm sure. The victims on that plane had extremely terrible luck. I read that there were 3 generations in a family on the Concord when it crashed. How tragic is that? Paying extremely high ticket prices and then end up killed. Once again the universe doesn't care.
Child mortality has improved so much. Guess the most important luck is surviving birth. Kids weren't so lucky in the past. Besides baby Jesus and few cherub angels you don't see too many children in old paintings. I heard somewhere that parents didn't want to get too attached to their kids because many children would die young and it would be too painful. No thanks to any deity death during childbirth is rare in the modern world. Way to go science! I got lucky because never in my life did I have to wear glasses, but some bad luck because my teeth were in need of braces. Gosh those things were ugly and painful. So looking forward to getting them off, but when I did nobody noticed.
What we want to do is increase our odds for a happy life. Create your own luck. Bon Jovi said something about making your own breaks. Phil Colins was lucky to meet Richard Branson when he was driving a cab. Lucky that he acted on the opportunity and the rest is history. I once got on a train and made eye contact with this very beautiful woman. I knew we liked each other and I sat beside her. For some reason I felt nervous. I started reading a book and she looked over to see what I was reading. My beer buzz at the time was wearing off and my mood was strange. I didn't end up talking to her, but before I got off the train I made eye contact again and held it for a couple of seconds. The luck was there, but not acting upon it is heart breaking. Don't know if I'll ever forget that day. Then there are people that work their asses off to build successful careers and big bank accounts and some other people call them lucky. There was also that 1 Japanese guy who survived the Hiroshima Little Boy bomb and then moved to Nagasaki to avoid the war and was welcomed by the Fat Man. He did survive that one as well so I read.
We are in desperate need of good luck since so many things in the universe want to kill us. That's another reason I don't believe in designer. Either he or she had to be incredibly inept or just plain evil. Tsunamis can wipe out hundreds of thousands of people in a short period of time and we never know when devastating earthquakes will hit. Sure would suck sitting on the toilet when a big one happens. We can increase our chances of living by building well designed edifices. A big enough asteroid would be game over for many living things. Many scientists agree that over 99% of species that ever were are now extinct. Bacteria is always trying to infect us. There are so many diseases that want to cause us harm. I'm lucky that I've never been hospitalized since I was born. Sure hope it stays that way. Sitting next to the wrong person on the bus or being in the place when lightning strikes is all about luck. So many things want to kill us even people. Mother Nature is brutal and unforgiving. Best of luck to all of us virtuous folks for a long and happy life.