What is luck?

Events simply exist, and we are the ones who attribute value to them.

Shifu: Master! Master! I have... It's, uh, it's very bad news!
Oogway: Ah, Shifu, there is just news. There is nothing good or bad.
Shifu: Master, your vision! Your vision was right! Tai Lung has broken out of prison! He's on his way!
Oogway: That is bad news if you do not believe that the Dragon Warrior can stop him.

Something is only bad if we believe it to be bad. Events are simply events, and we are the ones who attribute value to the actions and reactions around us.

The hard times were the required step to allow these possibilities to come into being. The outcome is not the outcome. The darkness is not an endpoint, nor is daylight. They live in a continually unfolding, mutually dependent cycle. Neither is bad or good. They simply exist. Rick Rubin.

In the last 5 months, I have buried both parents, had a minor car accident, and been laid off. I have 2 kids, a stay-at-home wife, a mortgage on a house, and 2 car payments. and somewhere in there, I no longer qualify for the health insurance I was under.

Good luck or bad luck, who can say?

Back in Oct 2023, I had my car in the shop for a minor issue that turned into a $5000 fix, so I decided to scrap the car. I still had around a $6000 loan for said car, but then my parents passed and I got their car. Good luck or bad luck, who can say?

I still had payments despite the new car. But then I got a share of my parent’s life insurance money, so no more car problems, but dead parents. Good luck or bad luck, who can say?

Don’t mistake my candid attitude for apathy; I miss my parents deeply. Yet I cannot change the past, nor do I want to. I am grateful for the opportunities given to me to show my character. Things, people, and money all come and go; the more tightly you try to grasp them, the more you will get hurt.

(Chris Williamson has a great podcast with Alex Hormozi on this; here’s a clip.)

Besides, who is to say that the story you are going through won’t end for good?

We don’t know, so operate with integrity. Assume the good, and you will find it. Change your lens, and you change your view.

I find most people around me living in contradiction; they live their lives carefully and as risk-free as possible, but in their free time, they involve themselves in drama and risk via the games they play or the shows they watch. We fantasize about being someone who would actually take risks.

The truth, however, is that how do you know that what you are doing isn’t risky? What if you are risking a better life by avoiding pain for an immediate reward?

Despite all that I am going through at the moment, I count myself lucky. I am lucky to have had such parents for as long as I did to teach and lead by example how to live.

We pick our pain; you can endure the pain of embracing your current situation or suffer the pain of a life neglected: David Mueller, my father, God’s faithful servant to the needy of this world.

We do not know the outcome, but how you respond is up to you, and how you respond will dictate how those around you will respond.

Be the man that others rely on at your father's funeral. Jordan Peterson.

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