Creating Your Own Luck

When I told my friends and family I was going to move to hawaii, they thought I was carzy. They were worried that I would use up all my savings before I found a good job. Hawaii is, after all, one of the ost expensive places to live in the United States. I got so tired of their negative comments that I decided to leave two weeks earlier. Two days after I arrived in Honululu, the newspaper had an advertisement for a job at the university that was exactly what I had been dreaming of! I applied, interviewed, and was hired. Later I realized that if I hadn't changed my flight, I never would have seen the job advertisement, and my life might have been different. Was it fate? Or was it just pure luck that I ''accidentally'' changed my reservation?

Recently, psychologists at some leading universities have looked at what ''luck'' really means. They found there are three types of situations that people usually associate with luck. The first is circumstance, such as being born in a wealty family or inheriting athletic genes. Obviously, this type of stuation is beyond anyone's control people can't change the circumstances of their birth. The second is random chance events, suchas rolling dice, which are also beyond our control. Your chances of getting a seven when rolling two dice or of being hit by a falling meteor are based on statistics. The third type of stuation includes events such as getting your dream job or meeting your ideal partner. It is in this third area that researches say we may be able to have more control over our lock.

A professor from England, Robert Wiseman, believes that people can influence their own luck in good or bad ways. Wiseman did a series of experiments with people who believed they were naturally lucky or unlucky. He found a clear connection between the attitude of the participants and the amount of '' luck'' thay had. He found four important attitudes and actions of '' lucky'' people. First, they are open to opportunities and make the most of situations that arise. Second, they trust their intuitions and often make decisions based on gut feelings. Third, they think positively and expect good things to happen. Having a positive attitude means they smile and laugh more, which attracts others and may create opportunities. Fourth, lucky people tend to focus on the good in each situation, whereas negative people tnd to focus on the bad side. Finally, lucky people typically don't give up easily.

Professor Wiseman also trained people to make themselves luckier. He asked them to keep a journal and write down only the good things that happened each day. After several days, people who used to feel unlucky began to see themselves as lucky, and those who originally felt lucky thought they were even luckier.

How luck are you? And how lucky would you like to be?

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