In the end, you make your own luck. Good, bad or indifferent. — Loretta Lynn

           There’s a line from Kismet, a largely forgotten musical, that has stuck with me since I first heard it back in the 60s:  “Fate is a thing without a head.”  It’s a more poetical way of saying luck is luck.  It can be good or bad. 

            I feel like a lucky person.  To feel that way, you have to have had things frequently cut your way, for no reason other than they just did.  It also helps to have some unlucky moments, which provides perspective. 

           In the business world, you often hear “Luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity.”  I don’t like this cliché very much, because it isn’t very poetic, but it’s essentially true.  I’ve known lots of people who refused to have good luck thrust upon them, then go on to feel put upon by life.  I’ve known others who seem to draw bad luck like Ben Franklin’s key drew lightning.  But those who can recognize good fortune when it appears, in time to exploit it, are the luckiest of all.

I also don’t like how the word privilege is used to scorn people, especially white/middle-class/suburbanite people like me.  It suggests that whatever achievement one may have had, it was all just a gift of social standing.  If that’s the case, I wish it hadn’t come with so much stress, grief, sleepless nights and utter exhaustion.  I prefer to say I had some luck along the way, including in my choice of parents, brother and personal associations.

            And DNA.  Somewhere in those long helical strings resides the compulsion to write.  It started when I discovered words at about four and has continued unabated into old age.  I was a lousy student.  In retrospect, I probably had a raging case of ADHA.  I couldn’t sit still or listen to anyone talking at me for more than a few minutes.  What I could do was write, so my academic career was entirely the result of writing my way out of trouble. 

           

          It got me my first job and every job after that. 

            I’ve known writers who are much luckier than me.  On the list are bestsellers, who don’t appear to be very good writers.  Sometimes quite awful.  They might have gotten started because their aunt ran acquisitions for Random House, but they kept succeeding because there’s a market for what they write.  I don’t begrudge them anything, even if the scales are balanced by a lot of incredibly gifted authors who barely claw their way on to the midlist. 

            It has a lot to do with luck and everyone has their allotment, both good and bad. 

            I could have been born with a gift for hitting baseballs.  This would have made for a much better Little League career, and perhaps a fruitful run with the Boston Red Sox.  But it’s not something with broader applicability.  I could be playing for the Senior Softball League, but that relies on good weather and available playing fields.  And dosing on Advil. 

I could have asked for more musical talent.  Though I’ve been engagingly involved in performing for most of my life, I always feel that the people on stage with me are a lot better at it than I am.  As with luck, good looks or a penchant for picking the right racehorse, musical talent is not evenly distributed across the population.  And wanting it to be so is a waste of emotional energy.   Just ask Salieri. 

When it comes to the talent lottery, I’m happy with writing.  It’s a lot more versatile than almost anything else.   Aside from the novels, TV commercials, corporate brochures, short stories, billboards, feature articles and speeches for the company’s CEO that can sustain ones lifestyle, it helps with angry letters to your congress person, grandchildrens’ birthday cards, anonymous tips to the police hotline and coherent sticky notes.  You can do it your whole life - as long as your brain stays intact - and reap the rewards at every stage. 

            Can’t get any luckier than that.