Lucky: part one

"Are ya feeling lucky, Kid. Well, are ya?" Dirty Harry proferred an existential question; do you feel lucky? Staring down the barrel of a very big gun may not be the best time to answer this question, it's something that you already need to know. Are you a lucky person? Some are, some know it. Some aren't and also know it. Not everyone thinks about it, assuming it's all odds and if they flip the coin enough eventually it'll come up half tails and half heads. I used to take some comfort in that.

I used to feel that shit happens, it happens to everybody but I've been paying a lot more attention lately and realized shit doesn't happen to everybody. Some people, in spite of having very little input into a positive outcome, do well. Some people believe in God and prayer so they can tip the odds in their favour, others have good social intelligence and can foresee an outcome and align their behaviours accordingly. I don't believe in god, or at least not the type that's paying attention, and rarely foresee with any accuracy the outcome of my behaviours but I had faith in science, in physics, in the odds.

I'm not blind to the good things in my life, I'm part of the 1%. I have good health, I own my own home, I love my city, my country, my family. But I'm not lucky. It was bad luck to find my son dead in his crib. Odds range from 1 in 1,000 to 10,000 depending on where you live. But there he was. The odds of having a child with cystic fibrosis is 1 in 3,000. The odds of having a second child predecease me of natural causes is incalculable. But there she went. I used to think "Holy cow! Those are some long odds but I 'beat' them" and even thought if I could beat those odds I could beat the odds against winning a lottery and bought a lot of tickets. Never even came close. It seems there's a difference between good luck and bad luck...

Those are bigger ones but there's been medium and small. The medium variety would include not getting a job I was qualified, experienced and had the seniority to get. They gave it to a woman for whom I was her union rep when she was called on the carpet for her poor attendance. She had no experience in the posted job but they didn't want me because I was an outspoken union steward. An easy grievance to win the union told me but as we went into it my union folded into another and the ball was dropped and didn't get picked up until the timeline was almost expired. My new rep assured me it's all good, we got this. Then he had a heart attack. By the time it got picked up again the timeline had expired. I've had a number of experiences like that, all ugly. The small ones are the simple things like games where the roll of the dice or cut of the card will give you a smile or a frown. I've had a lot more frowns than smiles and would never leave anything close to being important to something where I have a 50% chance of winning.

About a year ago I started to give it some serious thought. I'm coming up on the last quarter or so of my life and can look at the bigger picture and I'm glad I waited. Seeing your self as perennially unlucky would create perennial unhappiness. But now I'm looking back and weighing things out and aware of the possibility of giving more weight to the sad outcomes than the happy ones so last year I started one simple test. Electrical plugs are polarized, they only fit in a socket one way. If you check it before inserting you'll get it right every time, if you don't check you've got a 50% chance of getting it right. Same for USB cords into your computer. I decided to never check and see if I would get right the first time. I've been successful about 20% of the time. "But keep going" you could say, "and it would have to balance out". Maybe, but I'd have to get it right 80% in the next year. Maybe I never get back to even before my days are done.

But here's the important thing; I'm not unhappy. In spite of it all I'm very happy. At times I've had to force it, remind myself of all the good things in my life, think about people that have had it worse and my happiness floats like oil on an ocean of misery. Throughout it all I've remained hopeful, convinced that if I just kept going things will get better. After the first and second marriages failed I tried again and found la femme des mes reves, the best person I've ever known and while she beats me more often than not at our favourite game, have never been more in love.

I'll be home in less than a week (now in Costa del Sol but more about that later) and my son has been practising his tattooing skills. I told him to practise the word 'grateful' in Olde English script, it's going on my right arm.