Spending hours of my life as a kid searching for a four leaf clover, all in the attempt to prove that luck was real. Me and my constant need for proof of all things. I never questioned luck, I just wanted to see it live and in action, in something I could hold. I didn’t understand what it truly is, I just knew that it was represented by a green leafy thing. I never did find what I was looking for in that clover patch in my front yard.
I did find some ladybugs and white butterflies that I tried to catch and keep. My grandma had given me a mason jar that I put grass in and tried to entice the butterflies to fly in. They never would, but I did collect a few ladybugs. I kept them just long enough for me to observe them up close through the glass and then I let them go. I couldn’t bear the thought of them being trapped in the glass when they needed to be free. How lucky I felt to have seen them up close.
How lucky for them I realized their need to not be confined by me.
Thinking about that feeling, naming it luck, it’s like a weightlessness comes over me, a mild sense of awe and wonder at the moment at hand. I imagine that must be what flying feels like to an untrapped ladybug.
I don’t remember when I realized that luck wasn’t actually something tangible, or when I started to wonder what luck actually is. I think it’s been this slow progression of knowing that it’s something I have the ability to create, by shifting my perspective.
Another thought experiment come to life and backed now by studies, two people can experience the same event and have vastly different perspectives of it, one can feel lucky and one can feel quite the opposite. I also think that seeing something as lucky can depend on one's mood or disposition.
If I was taught by my mom or my grandma to see events as lucky, as though I was favored in some way, then I would be predisposed to building this into my personality, this constant feeling of being lucky. Really in the end I don’t know that I fully believe in luck. I just know that I want to hold onto that flying, awe feeling whenever something serendipitous happens.
Serendipity is my most favorite word (thank you for the question this week,
).serendipity (noun) ser·en·dip·i·ty ˌser-ən-ˈdi-pə-tē: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for
What is the difference between serendipity and luck?
There is considerable similarity between luck and serendipity, but there are also settings in which one word might be more apt than the other. Serendipity has a fairly narrow meaning, one that is concerned with finding pleasing things that one had not been looking for, while luck has a somewhat broader range (with meanings such as "a force that brings good fortune or adversity," "success," and "the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual"). One might easily be said to have luck that is bad, which one would not say of serendipity (Merriam-Webster .com, 2024).
I took a strengths personality test once for a therapist, my biggest strength was serendipity due to my ability to find the good no matter how shitty the situation. Seems about right.
That’s how I make my own luck. I serendipity the fuck out of everything. Even when I don’t want too, or even when it seems like there isn’t any way to find it. Somehow, some way, it happens. And that’s what I hold onto. No matter what.
What say you dear reader friends - how do you feel about luck or serendipity? Share with me :)
Thank you for being here! I appreciate you so much. I wouldn’t be here making the words go if it weren’t for you and your wonderfully supportive ways!!
Serendipity the fuck out of things- now that’s a mood!
Luck to me brings up binary. I perceive I’m either lucky or unlucky.
I love the word serendipity.
And just for fun, I’ll throw synchronicity in the mix, because that’s the thread I’m always looking for.
Jinx! My favorite word since I was about 9 years old. I discovered it in a thesaurus. “Thesaurus” became another favorite word and I carried the Weekly Reader paperback thesaurus everywhere with my Ziggy diary with tiny lock and key. It wasn’t until later in like I discovered the word comes from a Persian folk tale. Serendipity is a noun, coined in the middle of the 18th century by author Horace Walpole (he took it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip). The adjective form is serendipitous, and the adverb is serendipitously. A serendipitistis "one who finds valuable or agreeable things not sought for."-Merriam Webster Luck is a fun concept to me. I loved bugs and clover too and spent many hours in the woods. Some might object to the idea of “luck” as something not earned or divined so by a greater being. I sense luck is a whimsical and curious practice of childhood and beyond! From the Irish to the Asian cultures, luck is a human element. There’s a kind of liberation in not holding too tightly that resonates when I read your words, Mesa. This quote came to me: You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.
Thich Nhat Hanh. Thank you for taking me on this magical memory lane!