We Make Our Own Luck - Or, Do We?

The future is not some place we are going to but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.

John Schaar

American Scholar and Professor

 

What do you think about the above quote?  Does one make their own luck, are our lives predestined or is it all one big roll of the dice?  Or, perhaps a little of each?

 

Is the randomness of life alive and well?  Do you believe in pre-
destination or fate?  Luck, chance or a Higher Power?  Maybe a little of each?  Depending on how things turn out? Important questions.  To think about, ponder and reflect upon.

 

At various times in my life, I've felt I was the luckiest person alive.  At other times, the unluckiest.  Then there were instances where I believed my Higher Power was leading me to safety, or a resolution of some kind.  Still, other times felt like plain bad luck.  The parking ticket I got last week, for instance.  My husband leaving.  My kitty getting run over by a hit and run driver when she was just a year old.  And, the list goes on.

 

And so it is with such profound, and often confusing or upsetting situations, complications and life events, that I turn to meditation and Buddhism.  For in meditation, everything comes and goes like clouds passing in the sky.  Nothing stays the same--fortunately or unfortunately.  Of course, we'd all like the happy times to freeze-frame and stay around forever, but that's not the way life works.

 

So then, we need to appreciate the joy as it's happening--which is moment by moment.  And which, when you stop to think about it, is every moment you're alive.  For, every breath is joyful, every inhale and exhale, a celebration.  Disappointments come and go.  Failures are a matter of perspective and interpretation.  Much of what we attribute to unhappiness is a result of our own unskillful behavior (or reactivity, anger and negative emotions.) 

 

So rejoice.  You are ALIVE! You are in a good place. Be aware of this and other gratitudes in life.  Down times will come, to be sure.  Losses, sadness, grief and even trauma.  Yet present moment, wonderful moment is alive and well for all of us.  So, like the title of my photo suggests:  Bee Happy!