Luck

Yes, I’m weird. But there we go, this is what I’ve been thinking about over the last day or so, so I shall write about it…

“Good luck!”
“It’s the luck of the draw.”
“I wasn’t wearing my lucky socks…”
I don’t believe in luck.”
“Luck favours the brave.”

Heard those phrases? If you have, I’m pretty sure that you’ve got a good understanding of what this thing called luck is, and you probably want to stop reading…oh well!

I’ve been thinking through whether or not I believe in luck. I think I’ve come to a conclusion – luck isn’t really something that’s there to believe in. In my opinion, there are three distinct ways in which the sentiment of luck is used.

The first of these is in relation to chance. “It’s the luck of the draw,” is often heard in reference to sport, perhaps the world cup or a tennis tournament. If a team or player gets a good opponent and another gets a really difficult opponent, I guess we brand the team or player that got the easier option as lucky, because there was nothing controlling who they were drawn against. To call them lucky is to suggest that there is some kind of force (maybe moral) that governs the outcome of things that are left to chance. I think in this case that using luck to explain the outcome is pretty ridiculous, and I think that anyone with a basic grasp of statistics and probability would agree. The outcome is entirely down to chance, and measures are taken to ensure that the probabilities of each outcome are as similar as possible.

The second way in which luck is used is in the “Good luck!” sense. The use of the word luck in this case has the connotation that whatever is going to happen has an element of chance to it. Let’s take exams as an example – good luck in an exam would suggest that someone’s performance in that exam is entirely controlled by probability. This, of course, is never the case. Indeed, I think that whenever someone says “Good luck!” to someone, they certainly do not mean that chance is going to play a part. For this reason my old Head of Sixth Form used to never say it to students. In this sense, “Good luck!” means more, “I hope it goes well!” or, “I’m sure you’ll do well!” than, “your success is dependent on circumstances beyond your control, so I hope that those circumstances favour your chances!” For that reason, I don’t really have any problem with it, it’s a lovely thing to say to someone – you are wishing them well and showing them that you are confident in their ability and that they will perform to the best of their ability. My Head of Sixth made a point by objecting to it, so it was useful, but people who flatly refuse with a, “I don’t believe in luck…” are missing the point, and needlessly aggravating their friends!

The third way in which we might refer to luck is what I call the ‘lucky sock syndrome.’ I give total credit for this to Jason Robinson (an English rugby legend) for he writes about it in his autobiography, Finding My Feet ( if you can, get a copy of it and read it, it’s fabulous.) He talks about why he’s never bothered with having a lucky pair of boxer shorts or socks, because all they do is provide people with an excuse for poor performance. When someone does well we often hear, “It was because I was wearing my lucky underwear…” but so much more often we hear, “It was because I wasn’t wearing my lucky socks!” when something goes badly. Perhaps for some it provides them an easy way to be comfortable around people who they haven’t impressed, but it’s based on rubbish. People mess up, and I’m yet to find someone on this earth that hasn’t made any mistakes at all in their life. Making mistakes isn’t something to be embarrassed about, it just happens. Michael Jordan once said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed.” I’m not sure Jordan would blame his clothing for his mistakes – it seems like he’s pretty comfortable with it! So in this case, luck is an easy escape, a way to keep our heads held high in the midst of failure. Maybe it’s useful, but we’d be much better off if we didn’t need to worry!

Things happen in our lives in one of two ways – either they are caused by ourselves, someone else, or something inanimate, or they happen by coincidence. It isn’t ‘unlucky’ if someone gets a cold, it has a cause that science has shown us. It’s not unlucky if someone performs badly in a sports fixture or an exam, that bad performance had a cause…themselves. It’s not even unlucky if someone gets caught in a terrible ‘natural disaster’, it is coincidental that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Luck doesn’t really play a part – and it doesn’t choose who it ‘favours.’ “Luck favours the brave” doesn’t make any sense – good or bad things happen to everyone, regardless of their attitudes and personality. It’s hard – sometimes we wish we could blame someone or something for the difficult things that happen to us, but very often there is no-one we can. People may blame God, but I firmly believe that God doesn’t get too involved in bringing about bad circumstances, He prefers to work on what happens afterwards.

In summary – luck is a misleading concept – circumstances are often uncontrolled and statistically random, although the idea of luck can be useful, because it helps us to articulate our thoughts. Let’s not get too caught up in the semantics, but in turn not let luck mislead us and misinform us!