Croiser Les Doigts

Why do we cross our fingers? Why do we pray for luck? Why do we have so many idioms and gestures that make no sense for luck. Does luck even exist? Walk into a lavish casino in Las Vegas, dressed up looking fly, have a wad of cash in your pocket that you plan on gambling. You feel lucky. Your aura SCREAMS luck. But what is this word “luck”?

Step up to the Russian Roulette, put your hands confidently on the table, without despair, take out your chips hoping to cash them in. “Place your bets”. The dealer rolls, your panting and you feel your heart almost beating out of your chest. “Man, I hope I get lucky!” you whisper quietly to your partner. As the balls rolls around the roulette as fast as cheetah, do those milliseconds contain luck? Was it meant to be?

“Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions”, with the help of Webster helped me define luck. Out of chance, out of fortune, do we roll the dice, place the bet, or roll the roulette endlessly? This, in life, happens all the damn time. We live out of luck or do we live out of reason? Does everything happen out of pure logic and on purpose? Seems like a complicated subject to tackle.

We’ve grown up with the four leaf clover, with Buddha’s belly, with a rabbit’s foot. Maybe hoping that these objects will bring us the luck we want. But honestly, luck is out of your hands and maybe life isn’t even controlled. Or is it? Is life rolling the dice or is it as strategic as playing chess against a wise man? These questions come up all the time whether we like them or not.

Why did I meet this person, for a reason or out of pure luck? It’s an intangible essence but I think its a mix of both. My friend died at a young age but that didn’t happen for a reason and it sure didn’t happen because of luck; it just happened. There are events that we maybe cannot accept or get mad at God for them happening but sometimes they are out of His hands and out of YOUR hands. We can cross our finger that maybe we’ll get the part of the school play or maybe that we might find the man/woman of our life: our soulmate. These things just happen.

But at the end of the day, luck could honestly be in your responsibility. “Luck is a loser’s excuse for not having a winner’s position…” You can have anything you want in life. I am a firm believer in that anything in your reach can be yours. Are you a nerd hidden in the corner of the class mesmerizing on the hot quarterback of the football team? If you out your mind to it, you can do it. Right now, I am in the process of trying to transfer out of my current university to a more prestigious one and I am committing to the fact that it will happen because I put my mind to it and I worked my ASS off to deserve a position at that school.

The Russian Roulette lands on 25 red. You had placed a bet on 14 green. Seems like luck wasn’t on your side. I mean if you keep going you might lose everything but later win everything you had been working for. Same thing in life. Maybe I decide to be an actress and be on Broadway; I will probably lose everything in the process: money, education, family life, friends, love life but I CAN do it. If I really wanted to, I could do everything in my power to get there and achieve that goal.

Cross your fingers. Maybe luck WILL end up on your side.

Good Luck.

GY