If you want to test yourself, take a quick look at this domain name sometimes used by stress researchers: www.opportunityisnowhere.com.
What do you see? For many people, the web site seems discouraging: opportunity is nowhere. But others see the exact opposite: opportunity is now here. When it comes to hidden messages, lucky people perceive more of the world around them. “It is not that they expect to find certain opportunities, but rather that they notice them when they come across them,” Wiseman writes in his book “The Luck Factor.” This ability (or talent) “has a significant, and positive, effect on their lives.”
Wiseman, who holds Britain’s only professorship in the public understanding of psychology, at the University of Hertfordshire, has devoted a decade to exploring the secrets of serendipity. He discovered that some people actually do have all the luck, while others are a “magnet for ill fortune.”
“Luck is not a magical ability or a gift from the gods,” Wiseman writes. “Instead, it is a state of mind—a way of thinking and behaving.” Above all, he insists that we have far more control over our lives—and our luck—than we realize. Going back to the Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, great thinkers and writers have argued that 50 percent or more of what happens in life is determined entirely by chance (or Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fortune). Wiseman says no way. He believes that only 10 percent of life is purely random. The remaining 90 percent is “actually defined by the way you think.” In other words, your attitude and behavior determine nine tenths of what happens in your life. Wiseman has concluded that there are four reasons why good things happen to certain people.
(via Fred)
I totally failed that test. But I think I still have pretty good luck.
February 6, 2009 at 9:51 pm
“Luck is not a magical ability or a gift from the gods.” Maybe not, but a lot of magic is about opening up possibilities in this way. You can change the world, or at least your possibilities of interacting with the world, by changing your viewpoint. Both the “half empty” and “half full” views are belief systesm, but if both are equally true, which belief benefits you the most. On the other hand, you could also just say the glass is too big.