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Are You A Lucky Person?

Psyhchology Today  by Rafa Euba

Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck, is often depicted blindfolded and steering a ship. She is steering our lives, and she is doing so blindly.

Luck is a crucial component in our lives. Being born on either the right or the wrong side of the tracks, carrying these or the other genes in our chromosomes, or indeed taking this or the other turn on a seemingly unimportant day, will determine our future. Not everyone agrees: “When it comes to luck, you make your own,” said Bruce Springsteen. True to some extent, and yet I strongly suspect that there are countless hardworking potential rock stars out there whose talent remains undiscovered because they have never been in the right place at the right time. A creative gift and hard work play crucial parts in any success story, but sheer luck is equally critical.

Assessing Luck

Having accepted that there is such a thing as luck, there are two ways of assessing how lucky one is as a person. The first one is to consider how much luck one has had in life up to the present point. I, for instance, consider myself pretty lucky. I don’t delude myself into thinking that the good stuff I see in my life would have happened regardless of luck.

 

To give an example, I was fortunate enough to find my life companion in a strange city in a foreign country, and it happened by chance. I had landed in that city after applying for the first job I saw advertised in a medical publication that week. I became the trainee doctor in a ward where she worked as a nurse. A different ad on a different magazine, or on a different week, would have taken me to an undoubtedly worse destiny. At the same time, there have been instances in my biography in which I was spectacularly unlucky, but they are too painful to recall.

 

All of us have been both lucky and unlucky at different times, but I have no doubt that general “luckiness” in life could be represented by a normal distribution graph, in which the bulk of us would be found around the middle, blessed with a more or less average amount of luck.

 

A second way of assessing luck is the belief in “trait” luckiness; in other words, good luck as a personal attribute that not only has influenced events in one’s past, but that will also continue to determine events in one’s future. People who believe in luck as a general factor in life and those who believe that they are personally lucky tend to have very different personalities. Essentially, the former tend to be more neurotic and less happy than the latter. It is a good thing therefore to believe on one’s luckiness, but it is also absurd, as the following example illustrates.

Future Luck is Unrelated to Past Luck

Random is capricious and continues to operate randomly, whatever may have happened up to a given point. A roulette player may think that after five consecutive reds, the next spin must surely fall on black, following what has been named the “Monte Carlo Fallacy.” Of course, the odds for black will remain precisely 50 percent in every single spin, however many consecutive times the ball has landed either on red or on black. On August 18, 1913, the ball fell on black 26 successive times at the Monte Carlo Casino (hence the name of the fallacy). The odds of this happening were ridiculously low, so perhaps not surprisingly, gamblers in the casino bet heavily against the ball landing on black during this streak, some losing fortunes in the process.

Once upon a time the boundaries between work and home were fairly clear. Today, however, work is likely to invade your personal life — and maintaining work-life balance is no simple task.

This might be especially true if you work long hours. Technology that enables constant connection can allow work to bleed into your time at home. Working from home also can blur professional and personal boundaries.

Still, work-life balance is possible. Consider your relationship to work and ways to strike a healthier balance.

Married to your work? Consider the cost

If you're spending most of your time working, your work and your home life might be negatively affected. Consider the consequences of poor work-life balance:

• Fatigue. When you're tired, your ability to work productively and think clearly might suffer — which could take a toll on your professional reputation or lead to dangerous or costly mistakes.
• Poor health. Stress can worsen symptoms related to many medical conditions and put you at risk of substance misuse.
• Lost time with friends and loved ones. If you're working too much, you might miss important family events or milestones. This can leave you feeling left out and might harm your relationships.

Strike a better work-life balance

As long as you're working, juggling the demands of career and personal life will probably be an ongoing challenge. But by setting limits and looking after yourself, you can achieve the work-life balance that's best for you.

Setting limits

If you don't set limits, work can leave you with no time for the relationships and activities you enjoy. Consider these strategies:

• Manage your time. Give yourself enough time to get things done. Don't overschedule yourself.
• Learn to say "no." Evaluate your priorities at work and at home and try to shorten your to-do list. Cut or delegate activities you don't enjoy or can't handle — or share your concerns and possible solutions with your employer or others. When you quit accepting tasks out of guilt or a false sense of obligation, you'll have more time for activities that are meaningful to you.
• Detach from work. Working from home or frequently using technology to connect to work when you're at home can cause you to feel like you're always on the job. This can lead to chronic stress. Seek guidance from your manager about expectations for when you can disconnect. If you work from home, dress for work and have a quiet dedicated workspace, if possible. When you're done working each day, detach and transition to home life by changing your outfit, taking a drive or walk, or doing an activity with your kids.
• Consider your options. Ask your employer about flex hours, a compressed workweek, job sharing or other scheduling flexibility. The more control you have over your hours, the less stressed you're likely to be.

Caring for yourself

A healthy lifestyle is essential to coping with stress and to achieving work-life balance. Eat well, include physical activity in your daily routine and get enough sleep. In addition, aim to:

• Relax. Regularly set aside time for activities that you enjoy, such as practicing yoga, gardening or reading. Hobbies can help you relax, take your mind off of work and recharge. Better yet, discover activities you can do with your partner, family or friends — such as hiking, dancing or taking cooking classes.
• Volunteer. Research shows that volunteering to help others can improve your connections with others, as well as lead to better life satisfaction and lower psychological distress.
• Develop a support system. At work, join forces with co-workers who can cover for you — and vice versa — when family conflicts arise. At home, enlist trusted friends and loved ones to pitch in with child care or household responsibilities when you need to work late.

Know when to seek professional help

If your life feels too chaotic to manage and you're spinning your wheels worrying about it, talk to a mental health provider. If you have access to an employee assistance program, take advantage of available services.

Creating work-life balance is a continuous process as your family, interests and work life change. Periodically examine your priorities — and make changes, if necessary — to make sure you're keeping on track.

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