The Book of Sifty

Luck is bullshit 3:05AM

Now I'm in more of a writing mood. Well more of 'ranting' mood maybe a better
way to describe it. I was reading a book the other day and a character reckoned
they had 'luck'. Not good luck or bad luck. Just luck. The luck
to be in the right place at the right time, even if that was not where he wanted
to be, or should have been. The luck to meet people, even if he shouldn't have,
or would have been better off not meeting them.

luck
(l'k) n.

The chance happening of
fortunate or adverse events fortune: They met one day out of pure luck.

Good fortune or prosperity; success: We wish you luck.

One's personal fate or lot: It was just my luck to win a trip I couldn't
take.

(From dictionary.com
since I can't remember where Ash put his dictionary)

Now the whole luck thing I find kind of an interesting topic currently.

I hate to say it, since its kind of negative, cynical thought to have, but
I consider that if I have any luck at all its bad luck - or least bad luck more
often than not.

Here are some examples:

I arrive in the UK, looking for work, at the beginning of a major IT downturn.
(Check out this pretty graph if you
don't believe me. I arrived in the UK on the 21 of January);

I seem to meet people at totally the wrong times in my life and often theirs;

I miss trains, planes, buses and boats by seconds on regular occasions;

I've broken bones on the most ridiculously simple of falls from my mountain
bike;

The UK Foot and Mouth outbreak closes basically everywhere interesting in the
UK I could ride a few weeks before my bike arrives;

They lose the documentation for my bike so its stuck in customs for three
weeks.

I could go on but its serves no purpose other than to piss me off..

But despite this, and the fact I'm a totally hardened and jaded cynic. I refuse
to believe in luck and always have!.

Luck is Fate. Fate implies some sort of destiny or something that is beyond
your control. Thats a crock. Most of the things listed above I consider I could
turn into 'good luck', or at least 'no-luck' situations by being a more prepared
and less useless person. Somethings I just have to put down to bizarre and unfortunate
statistical events. These things have to happen to somebody, just most people
keep quite about them, or don't consider them a big deal so you never hear about
them. None of them however are Luck

So as the first part of my general self improvement, I've come up with list
of goals for the next while. There is no time frame on these goals. Some of
them I intend to action immediately. Others will be longer term. Just to keep
you suckers reading I'm going to write about them each, individually, some other
time. All except this one since its the point of my whole rant:

Sifty self improvement - Goal 1 : Be more positive. ('Luck' is a pile
of crap.)

So if I start moaning again. Give me a slap.

So on a totally mundane note they paint 747s
at some airport just out of Cambridge. Where I'm staying currently is on
the flight path, so as they come overhead they haven't got much height,
and on the way in are shiny and silver with no paint, or grungy and dirty
waiting a fresh colour application. Apparently the runway here is too short
for 747s to land, unless they have no fuel in them. So any day now I'm
expecting one, flown by some washed up derelict pilot, retired from flying
planes with people in them due to an incident with his hotel mini-bar,
to crash land on me and prove that whole luck thing right after all.

Okay this 'being positive' lark is going to be harder than I thought.