Never say ‘ No’ to a great idea wittily since it is impossible. — Dr. Robert Schuller
July 4, 1939, during a doubleheader between the New York Yankees and Washington Senators, one of the most memorable events in the history of major league baseball occurred.
Lou Gehrig, Yankee first baseman, after ending his streak of 2, 130 consecutive games ( a register only recently surpassed by Baltimore Oriole shortstop Cal Ripkin ), announced to the world he had been striken with amyotrophic oblique sclerosis, a neurological disease, and there was no cure.
The Yankees decided to aggrandizement baseball’ s Iron Man with a adventure at Yankee Lawns. Yankee Lawns that day was packed. There wasn’ t, I’ ve heard, a dry eye in the stands. Baseball greats who played later Gehrig, including Maid Ruth, assembled to remuneration tribute to a dear amigo — along with members of the Washington Senators.
Gehrig, his voice weak and fighting back mourning, read a speech, a short one, he had written the night before.
“ Fans, for the gone two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. In future today I excogitate myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 agedness and I have never avowed device but indulgence and encouragement from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’ t toss around it the point up of his career just to associate with them for even one day?
Gehrig went on to tell the Yankee field crowd WHY he considered himself lucky and finished his speech in ululation: “ When you have a groovy humongous - in - law who takes sides with you in squabbles against her own daughter — that’ s something! When you have a father and mungo who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body— it’ s a blessing! When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed — that’ s the finest I know!
“ So I close in saying that I might have been habituated a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for! Thank you. ”
Gehrig died June 2, 1941 resolute to the edge he still had much to live for. ALS, the disease that took his life, is now referred to as Lou Gehrig’ s disease.
Love, Luck, Money, Serendipity, Good Fortune, The Good Life — we all want these things, as did Lou Gehrig who considered his life a lucky one.
So, how lucky were you today? Does Lou Gehrig’ s story add a bit of perspective to how you answer this debate?
LUCK AND POSSIBILIITY THINKING
Does possibility thinking tilt luck in our favor? Is it your view that notably negative people get taken care of by life ( for reasons that make no sense ) and do hugely well while people you know ( whose aim is love and light ) undertaking around to find enough cash to keep their lights on?
Lou Gehrig’ s positive outlook, his reliance that a way might be found to cure ALS before it took him, did not play out the way he hoped. Fundamentally, to the tail, Gehrig considered himself a lucky man.
One thing Lou Gehrig’ s story taught me is this: If we cannot appreciate how lucky we contemporary are then we are unlucky for we feel ourselves so. Also, not many of acknowledge themselves lucky due to the omission of a bad thing to happen.
“ Locus are my lucky opportunity, the ones others seem to get? ” L. T. wonders. “ The friends I graduated with? I look at them. I contemplate what they’ ve got. Then, I look at what I own. I can’ t help but be discouraged. ” Someday, in my view, L. T. and his wife have a great life— each has a well - thriving employment, they have their health, youth, two great youngsters, plus all the current conveniences in their home a existing - day family will ever need.
Is L. T. lucky? He doesn’ t seem to think so. With his stand, it’ s easy to check with him. L. T. is unlucky due to he feels he is, even though it’ s hard to glom how he can feel so “ down” about his life.
“ Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have current, ” the Roman Tsar Marcus Aurelius wrote. “ Of the things you have, select the best, and then rebound how gladly they would have been sought if you did not have them. ”
L. T., in my view, is lucky beyond expectation! And, unlucky not to feature how great is his good fortune!
“ If the stars should come one night in a thousand agedness, ” Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, “ how men would reckon on and enjoy and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the Point of Demigod which had been shown! ”
The believers would be lucky! As it is, the stars expose nightly and those who do not heed or care whether or not stars are in the sky cannot be considered called lucky, don’ t you buy into?
“ You wake up in the morning, and lo! your pouch is magically filled, ” Arnold Bennett wrote, “ with twenty - four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life! ”
How lucky, how fortunate, how serendipitously delightful to wake up and be gifted with additional hours of life! How unlucky not to grasp this phenomenal reality and live FROM it.
And so, here’ s the deplore of the unlucky, the impossibility thinkers, the unthankful and ungrateful who occupy space among us but do not fill it with business but their laments: “ Why me? Why have I been singled out? Why do my best laid plans always go awry”
“ Lost: finally between sunrise and twilight, ” Horace Mann phrases it, “ two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever. ”
How unlucky!
And then there is our fashionable day languour of concern. So much to annoyance about these days. Headache, fear, doubts, upsets, hunger, frustration, quicken, accelerate, accelerate, rush, rush, rush, here, there, all-over, faster, faster, faster, no time, overscheduled life, beat up, exhausted, worn out - - how unlucky!
Johann von Goethe’ s “ take” on his life and times led to this shrewd and insightful observation:
“ If the morning wakes us to no new joys, if the evening brings us not the hopes of new pleasures, is it worthwhile to dress and undress? ”
What a down sentiment! How unlucky— to live with a sense that you’ re losing your life in an crack to live it.
So, if you’ re unlucky in love, are unluckily trapped in a job you loathe, unluckily facing mistake once again, how can you reverse your luck?
Dr. Richard Wiseman has studied luck for over a decade. His book The Luck factor lists four essential judgment he believes will alter the cycle of an unlucky life.
Dr. Wiseman says that lucky people create, mark, and act upon the chance opportunities in their life. They build and maintain a strong “ network of luck, ” and are unlocked to new experiences.
This strong “ network of luck” is what Max Gunther in his book The Luck Factor calls “ throwing out many luck products. ” Gunther points out that “ The electric remark that makes for luck rarely comes from our well - worn contacts, ” and encourages us to take an explorer’ s enthusiasm in the world which is how we recurrently serendipitously right people with retaliated interests.
Next, Wiseman says the lucky listen to their lucky hunches. Gunther’ s theosophy was to point out that each of us carries an invisible luck potential and that “ With luck, half - seared plans get you yet. With bad luck, no plan will work. ”
Use your intuitive luck potential to lob out more luck wares and recognize, while you’ re doing so, this is NOT all about you. “ Your broiling - spirited actions sustain awareness of you in other minds, ” Gunther writes. In other words, be thorough conference YOU makes others lucky!
Thirdly, lucky people’ s expectations abut the ulterior help them fulfill their dreams and ambitions. In other words, they EXPECT good fortune, even if their chances to achieve a certain goal seem slim. They also presume true their interactions with others will be lucky and fortuitous.
Being Hot makes you luck contagious! Gunther points out that “ Expectation sends an electrical message to our neural system. While it lasts we are alert and most apt to be rewarded. ”
In other words, we are likely to be LUCKY!
Presently, Dr. Wiseman says lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune. “ They view the positive side of their bad luck and are specific any ill fortune will, in the long run, work out for their best. The lucky do not dwell on their ‘ unfortunate’ former failings and they take constructive steps to prevent more bad luck in the near. ”
Love what you do and do more of it! Gunther notes that “ The lucky renew their energy through the action in which they’ re engaged, ” a fact that is so undisguised we oftentimes fail it when we’ re overwrought or suffering. “ When ZEST enters into life, luck is often not far behind, ” Gunther reminds us.
Plus, as Nicholas Rescher points out in his book Luck: The Brilliant Randomness of Everyday Life, the lucky be entertained the unpredictability of life and extent out for new experiences. “ For if the forthcoming could be predicted, what fun would persevere in life? ” Arthur Schlesinger asks in his writings, which is why we much do madcap and “ crazy” things— just to break the routineness in our life. No matter what befalls us, it is the view of Frederick Wiedmann that a happy, very lucky and successful life is one in which we have “ The mature capacity to find the ‘ Yes’ in all things.
”
Dr. Wiseman believes it is possible, armed with his four essential techniques for turning around our luck, we can reverse and pull out of the downward spiral or cycle of bad luck we’ ve been in. He has created a luck cram to teach unlucky people to do just this — and with considerable success.
LUCK, IMAGRY, AND EXPECTATION
How are our beliefs important to the determinations we make inside ourselves that we are a lucky or unlucky person?
In his book Healing Visualizations, Dr. Gerald Epstein says imagery is a superb way to initiate one’ s healing process. Imagery is a simple process and the benefits far outweigh the effects of smartly doing diddly.
“ It means finding, discovering, or creating a mental picture, a mental form. The imagined— but still real— form has all the characteristics of any event, thing, or footing of any waking event, thing, or site that we might contemplate in everyday waking reality. ”
Dr. Epstein continues, “ The difference is that, unlike objects perceived when hep, they have no joint or mass. In short, they have no substance. Conclusively, they do have energy. We might think of these images [my comment: or reactions] as our mental children. We give birth to them to act on our gain as agents of healing [or luck, we might also add]; then, with the energy they take possession, they progress to stimulate the healing [or act as a lucky self - fulfilling prophecy] process on their own. ”
In other words, as Dr. Epstein explains, it’ s clear that what we creatively imagine is a veiled reality, but IT IS A REALITY with the power to affect our bodies and, by extension, our luck. The transcedental writer Neville Goddard pointed out many times that we do not get what we want in life so much as we be told what we EXPECT or feel we DESERVE.
Dr. Wiseman says the lucky nurture to get luckier and the unlucky unluckier as time goes by. Perhaps this explains the else meaning Jesus had in mind when he verbal, “ To him that hath shall be liable and to him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. ” The rich get richer, the poor poorer.
Stopwatch your EXPECTATIONS - - what you EXPECT to be TRUE - - if you plan to power up your luck potential and in doing so diminish any digit of unlucky episodes you were coming up to encounter in the senescence ahead.
LUCK AND POSSIBILITY THINKING:
Many agedness ago Dr. Robert Schuller wrote a go about Possibility Thinking. “ Never say ‘ no’ to a great conception neatly because it is nutty, ” he said. This was, to me, an extraordinary idea the first time I read it. I wrote on a single out, “ Never say ‘ no’ to a great idea cleverly considering it is nonsensical, ” and carried it in my wallet for age.
I’ ve in that come to hold that the prophetic say ‘ No’ to luck just as easily as they turn molehills into mountains. Over they enjoy this ability and use it often they are, we dexterity say, magicians of the contemptible somewhat than magicians of the possible— in other words, they are prescient.
No object how ominous you’ ve been, a possibility capacity is always informed, as Max Gunther notes, that “ One great fighting chance, a far cry worthy chance can counterbalance a run of ( seeming ) bad luck. ”
Can it ever. Be used by a rich abstraction that will turn your luck around. “ Setting do I find rich ideas? ” the minatory ask. When media lord Ted Turner donated a billion dollars to a valuable cause a few oldness ago he was asked by a reporter, “ Aren’ t you going to miss the money you’ re giving away? ” Turner grinned confidently and replied, “ The world is brimming with money. ”
What a best-selling way to watch the world and money. “ Indubitably, but he’ s got money. He can lend to think that way, ” the malefic say. There is always a actuation not to be used by a rich abstraction isn’ t there? Discover YOUR great break ( it’ s probably closer than you image ) and you will be well on the way to putting a bumper docket on your modus that says, “ Luck Happens! ”
As does serendipity!
LUCK AND SERENDIPITY:
IN 1754 an Englishman, Horace Walpole, wrote a compose to his familiar Horace Mann in which Walpole resurrected an obscure Oriental word. In his record, he told Horace man about a white lie called The Three Princes of Serendip. Walpole coined the word Serendipity and a third degree in Britain ( 2, 000 A. D. ) voted Serendipity as that country’ s favorite word.
What is Serendiptity and how is its linked to luck? Benjamin N. Cardozo wrote, “ Like many of the first things of life, like happiness and tranquility and account, the gain that is most ace is not the thing sought, but the one that comes from itself in the inspect for heavy further. ”
Sir James A. H. Murray described Serendipity as “ The capability of making happy and unexpected discoveries by exploit, ” and a definition from Webster’ s Dictionary described it as “ the provision of finding heirloom or agreeable things not sought for. ”
Take several minutes and cast on the many instance position and when serendipity played an unsuspected role in your life? You’ ll be surprised when you cast your mind back to the long forgotten instances of so many lucky and fortuitous times when the gain that was most precious to you was not the thing sought, but the one that surfaced in your search for something else— like the festive occasion you didn’ t feel like sight, distinctive your mind at the last minute, and while there met the person of your dreams who also, for reasons they’ re not fully downright about, also far cry their mind and decided to go.
As Marcus Bach would point out, quoting the term of his book, what bounteous could this magical confluence of events be delete The Magic Power of Serendipity?
Bach claims there is a also serendipitous test of guidance: “ It always motivates you ( you do not motivate it ); it always fills you with a sense of rightness; it always leaves you and your world in better spirits than before. ”
This is very twin to one of Dr. Richard Wiseman’ s four techniques for creating a luckier life: Listen to Your Lucky Hunches.
So, get bigger your lucky opportunities by first of all writing your scope upon the heavens [in other words, shake your dreams out of your analytical pockets or purse] and listen to, play, and trust your lucky hunches to guide you to them.
LUCK AND MONEY
My comrade Peter has a theory about money and luck. He says, as we all side with, that money is energy. Peter, however, says money on the physical plane is DENSE energy. You can learn to play around with dense energy and get yourself a home, a car, furniture and food, or you can grow a transcedental carrot. A real carrot, Peter notes, is grown from the dense energy of the blacken. What good, he asks, is a paranormal carrot if you can’ t eat it? His view is that when Jesus told his followers to “ be wise as a serpent and innocuous as a dove, ” he was saying be wise in the ways of the world and if survival depends on a physical plane existence and you’ re going to have to play in the same field as the the well - to - do, then you better to give up any fanciful notions you have about money being the root of all evil [actually the Greek is “ a” root of evil], get real and wise, become as educated and informed as your competitors are, and let your light shine as brightly or even more brilliantly than theirs does. You’ ll do this if you want to “ make it” in this senile world of ours.
This, Peter says, is what the lucky do. The unlucky wait and drift. They just sort of mosey through life steadfast “ the universe” will somehow take care of them ( or the limitation, or Aunt Jewell’ s will, or the sweep if they’ re lucky! ). To quote Max Gunther again, “ Unlucky people are notably passive. ”
Is being lucky in love or money ( perhaps both ) a fortuitous “ chance” incident, merely a roll of the dice? Some win, some lose? My dad used to think so and he played life like the gambler he was. The stakes were high and winning required that you know more about the game than your dissenter. “ Win some, lose some, ” he used to say.
He won the tributes of life more repeatedly than he lost. Partly, I believe for, all right he played the odds, but he only played them when they were certainly in his favor. In other words, he knew how to attract luck. Dad never went into a business shot or deal without current having visualized the outcome he expected. He worked out the ending in his mind and, unlike most people, proceeded backwards from his goals ( as if they were just now accomplished reality ). And this, I affirm, made him ( a man with only a question grade education ) a financially lucky man.
After all, he married the girl of his dreams. He was fortunate in love, you might say, owing to his buddy, who was engaged to her at the time, introduced them! He was unlucky in love, perhaps— as was she— in that they were so at variance.
Are we all in this game of life playing the genetic hand dealt us at birth ( for better or worse ) or is there an underlying ornament, a structure to luck all of us can learn ( if we choose ) and, by doing so, upgrade the quality of our existence here?
The Luck Factor, Possibility Thinking, Serendipity, and Good Fortune — Too Much For A Person to Expect in One Lifetime? Part 2, concludes in the next articulation
