Make Your Own Luck

“If you’re lucky enough to still have a job". If you are in the habit of listening to talk radio how many times, today alone, have you heard that phrase? From personal finance gurus, economists, priests, union officials, politicians, taxi drivers, journalists and assorted miscellaneous hacks and “commentators”.

Being lucky would by my estimation imply that you are somehow bucking a trend, fortuitously avoiding a fate being meted out to a downtrodden majority. But then a quick glance at the unemployment statistics triggers a bit of head scratching. The current rate of unemployment is 13%.

So if you want to be accurate in your deployment and application of the concept of luck as a phenomenon which is reserved for the chosen few who defy the odds, contravene all probability, trends, logic, pattern, reason or statistical analysis but rather have cajoled the magic to alight randomly on their blessed shoulders should that introductory catchphrase not read “If you’re lucky enough to be unemployed”.

I’m just saying.