Monday, May 23, 2016

Recognizing that luck is a pervasive force in life is impossible given its often subtle and mundane presence. It is a word more often assigned to a lottery winner or a survivor of a lightning strike. Rarely is it noted in the fortune of picking a novel from the shelves of a used book store that will rapidly become a dear friend; sometimes, even, a life altering one. It is often glossed over in the long discussion between dear friends in front of a fireplace on a winter's evening. It is the grace of dew in the morning or frost on the windows or the fortuitousness of waking up naked beside another sharing a piece of your soul. It is in the heartfelt laughter of a child or the mercy of death that comes during sleep.

There are so many ways to be lucky and so many ways to ascribe our personal success to our own inherent worthiness. So much of our success and the course of our lives is the result of being in the right place at the right time. In being born in a specific geographic location. In the difference between a thriving or a failing public school being the closest in proximity to home.