Getting Lucky

I consider myself to be one of the luckiest persons in the history of our species.  I was raised in a fairly affluent household in the  world’s most prosperous country at a time of relative peace.  Public health is such that most of the things that would have likely killed me 100 years earlier have largely been eliminated. I grew up physically safe with supportive parents. I never saw that my prospects were limited by the circumstances of my birth or upbringing —  a wonderful foundation on which to build a life.   You hear a lot of stories about how this or that successful person’s greatness was assured by their drive,  skill, or cleverness.  Luck gets short shrift.  Sure Mozart was a genius.  But for his genius to emerge, he had to have been born a male in 18th century Salzburg, which happened to be the capital of an archbishopric of the Holy Roman Empire, and he had to survive childhood (5 of his siblings did not).  Not to mention, his father was a music teacher/composer.  Talk about lucky.

I just finished reading How Luck Happens: Using the New Science of Luck to Transform Work, Love, and Life co-written by Janice Kaplan and Barnaby Marsh.  Ironically, I happened upon the book while my wife was visiting me on my quasi-sabbatical in San Francisco as we were bobbing in and out of shops at Fort Mason.