Preventing Bad Luck

On the old TV show, Hee Haw, every week, with downcast face and voice, they sang:

Gloom, despair and agony on me!
Deep dark depression, excessive misery!
If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all!

Dialectical–considerate–thinking shuts out most of our bad luck. Nothing can stop all of it, but it can usually be avoided if we live with our eyes and ears and mind “on the other hand,” which is where bad luck ordinarily comes from. When we can avoid being caught by surprise, we can be prepared for whatever might be headed our way. We can be like Nathan Bedford Forrest who said of Stonewall Jackson, “he got there firstest with the mostest.”

If we make it our habit to consider life from several perspectives, we can seize the initiative and “get there the firstest with the mostest.” Sometimes we can catch that potential “bad luck” before it gets to us, and be prepared to ambush it before the bad luck knows what is happening.

Likewise, thinking like an octopus, considering the many hands, using all the time available to us before decision-making time, will open the door and put out the welcome mat for good luck to walk into our house for a visit. A perennial truism says that the more we pre-pare, the more we stay alert, the more are aware, the more we pay attention, the luckier we get.

Yeah, yeah, we know all of that. We’ve heard it all our lives. We know it’s true, yet we continue to believe that some people are just born lucky and others unlucky. We might ought to wipe the dust and cobwebs off of those wise old words, so that, like the Boy Scouts, we can “be prepared.” If so, we just might get to be among the lucky ones.

Good luck!