Being that it is St. Patrick’s day today, I decided to look into a little bit of the origins of the day. Since this blog is all about luck and getting lucky, I decided to focus on the well known phrase “the luck of the Irish”.
The most common picture that comes to mind when you think of St. Patrick’s Day and the Irish is a little green leprechaun with a four leaf clover that brings him luck. If you’ve been reading my blog, you will know that I don’t believe in lucky charms. I believe that people make their own luck and that it is possible for anyone to get lucky if they try.
The Luck of the Irish
Very few of the Irish men who fought for the British Army were killed and they coined the phrase “the luck of the Irish”. Some people thought it was the Shamrock that brought them luck but if you think about it, there is a very good reason that these soldiers had a better success rate. They were all decedents of Celts and Vikings who were known as great fighters. These soldiers “Got Lucky” in War because they were good at what they were doing.
If you want you can believe in lucky charms and carry around your lucky four leaf clover but the point is that to get lucky, you have to be good at what you are doing. When several people compete for something, be it a job, a competition or anything else, it is usually the best person who wins. Getting lucky means working hard to be the best.
I am a typical person more or less that has always tried to get away with doing the absolute minimum to get by. In school, I did my assignments last minute, I barely passes some of my tests, I crammed for everything and didn't care about retaining any information. I always wanted to be successful and get lucky but my problem was that I thought that luck and chance were synonymous. One day, all that changed when i found out that there was more to "Luck". I learned that it was possible to make your own luck and that people that were "lucky", all had very similar characteristics. I made a conscious decision to become one of those lucky people and the world started to open up. It didn't happen overnight and I'm still not there yet but at least I know what to look for and what to do. Recognizing the opportunities to get lucky is only the beginning of the battle. Now I have to train myself to jump on every opportunity and one day be truly "lucky".
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