Luck, We All Have Some Did you ever wonder about chance? What exactly is chance? Chance is an unpredictable element in what is about to happen or what has happened. It is also defined as the likelihood of something happening. I personally never play the lottery for example, because I feel I don’t have a chance of winning, but others say everyone has a chance. Who is correct? Individually I would have to say as you name people who bought lottery tickets we also have to figure in luck. This has been proven at times when some have won the lottery more than once. Luck is defined as different things both good and bad, but I like the definition one’s fate or lot. It does seem some people have far more good luck than others. There seems to be degrees of good luck. All of us might have good luck at one time or another, while others have it a lot more often. Then there are those who have it, but don’t realize it. For example, a person might be hired for a job and not realize he was picked for the job from a large pool of applicants and some might have been just as qualified as he or she was. I have had a lot of good luck in my life. Not the type that made me rich or anything like that, but in my health, marriage and family. I have fallen off a few things since I was a child and some of them were high, and yet I never was hurt. Just the other week, in my old age I fell off a step ladder backwards, hit the back of a couch and did a flip in the air and landed on my back and got up and walked away. I consider that very lucky. When I was in the army, I was never sent to Vietnam when the war was raging, and that was lucky. The luckiest thing that happened to me was meeting the most wonderful woman who later became my wife of 57 years before she passed away. We had a wonderful life. Yes, I think I am very lucky. There seems to be different types of luck. Some people get very rich because they are lucky, but not every one gains riches this way. When I look at the odds of winning a big lottery, I am amazed that anyone can win it twice or even once for the grand prize and then a large secondary prize. The odds on winning power ball average 1 in 292 million. That means if almost everyone in the United States bought a ticket there could be one winner. On top of all that many times no one as even won the big prize, so it increases. I am of the firm belief everyone on the planet as some good luck sometime in their life, even the most deprived people. I was listening to a homeless person who lived in a state that allows tent cities all over, free drug use, and free meals. The woman said she had a great life because she could get high all the time between meals and no one bothered her because she was living in a tent. She thought this life was great and she was very lucky. I am sure a lot of other people might have seen this different. She had chosen to be homeless, unlike others who couldn’t help it and were down on their luck. If luck is not working for you, yes, you are down on your luck. There we go with luck again. What are the odds of winning the lottery twice. Are they the same? Does one have the same chance of winning a lottery after they have won one? That question has been asked many times. I believe the consensus of opinion is the odds of winning a lottery a second time, are the same as winning the first time. There are those who believe that the odds are much greater. Luck is working in places we cannot see. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it may be considered bad. Some have said if it wasn’t for bad luck, they would have had no luck at all. I think they fail to look at their life as a whole event. There are so many stories of people who were thought to be dead who woke up. This has to be considered great luck by many, but they all didn’t feel this way. Some claim they were taken out of their bodies and met with deceased family and friends and didn’t want to leave them, so they considered what some thought was good luck as bad luck. This does prove one thing however and that is luck can be a matter of opinion. Sometimes luck rears its head during wartime. Take George Washington for example. He was an officer before the Revolutionary War and involved in battles. There was at least one time when a bullet pierced his clothing, but did no damage to him. Can you imagine what the country would have been like without him? Perhaps the United States would not even exist. That was good luck. On the other hand, Stone Wall Jackson, one of the best Southern Generals was shot and killed by his own men by accident. That was bad luck for him. Perhaps if he wasn’t killed the war might have gone the other way. Many people who know the history of the Empire State building, know it was hit by a bomber known as the B-25. What they may not know is the fact an elevator operator named Betty Lou Oliver was in her elevator at the 80th floor. The elevator fell 75 floors and this is recorded as the longest elevator fall in history. The cables had snapped from the crash. She was hurt but survived and holds the Guinness World record for the longest survived elevator fall. That was good luck. There are a couple of stories about surviving incredible falls. One I remember took place in World War II. A crew member was in a bomber and it was hit and was going up in flames. He decided to jump even though he didn’t have a parachute. He was trained in parachute landings. He fell many thousands of feet and when he hit the ground he rolled as if he had a chute. He broke both ankles and legs but actually lived, as incredible as it seems. Another man was an experienced sky diver. He jumped from his plane and pulled the rip cord, but nothing happened. He then went to his reserve chute which also didn’t work. He was plummeting 12,000 feet. When he hit the ground, he punctured a lung and broke an ankle and lived. There is no accounting for luck.
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