Personal essays
On the certainty of increasing your luck
Holes in the walls
When I was in college, students would hang posters and things on the walls of their dorm rooms.
During the nine months we lived there, we wanted to make the rooms feel like “ours.”
But they weren’t ours. And at the end of the second semester someone from the housing staff would take a look at the room and assess a fee if there were any damages.
One of the magic ways to avoid a fee was Pepsodent.
That’s right - the toothpaste.
You could fill tiny holes with it. It would dry within a day and then you could sand it to leave a smooth wall.
I think there was some sort of law that the walls needed to be painted between residents so a smooth surface was enough.
I suppose other toothpastes worked, but for some reason we all used Pepsodent.
We were young and stupid and hoped the housing staff wouldn’t notice the toothpaste-filled holes in the wall. I don’t know how they missed that our dorm rooms were minty-fresh - but, for the most part, this technique worked fine.
Hope may be a strategy
In the latest episode of the “Curious Cases” podcast the hosts explored the notion of actual luck and whether or not we feel as if we are lucky.
Actual empirical luck can be measured with statistics.
There’s less than a one in one thousand chance of tossing ten heads in a row on a fair coin.
Knowing our chances in cases like that is helpful.
But some of us just feel lucky.
I’ve never thought of myself as an optimist and I’m writing this as my flight to Frankfurt is delayed two hours and I’m going to miss my connection to Bologna - but generally, I feel that except for those two big things in my life, I’ve generally been pretty lucky.
The two big things are losing Elena and Kim.
But other than that.
If I closely examine things, I’m not sure that my life has actually been any more or less lucky than the next person.
It’s more that the way I keep score - or more accurately - the way I remember things, I am more likely to remember the good than the bad.
Feeling lucky
In the podcast episode, one of the guests said that we could train ourselves to feel more lucky.
He suggested that we take a moment at the end of the day to write down one lucky thing that happened to us that day.
He said that it would take about two weeks for us to internalize that we were, in fact, lucky. This leads to us not walking around thinking good things never happen to us.
I wonder if this works for other things.
What if we note one kind thing someone did for us each day?
What if we note something that made us happy?
Will this lead to noticing the kindness of others and the joy in our lives.
I know - I know - We live in an awful time. People are being rounded up, corruption is rampant, and no amount of Pepsodent can fix the damage done to the East Wing of the White House.
But maybe that’s even more of a reason of why it’s so important to check each day on something lucky, something kind, and something that made us happy.
Optimism
There are benefits to feeling lucky.
One of the podcast guests conducted an experiment where he gave the subjects a section of a newspaper and instructed them to count the number of pictures in the section.
Included in the newspaper were two half-page ads.
One said, “Stop. There are 52 pictures in this section.”
The other said, “Present this add to the experimenter in exchange for $100.”
The findings were that people who feel lucky were more likely to see the ads.
People who feel unlucky - that things unfairly happen to them - would page past the ads and continue to count the pictures.
It turns out our luck is somewhat dependent on how we perceive ourself - and that can be changed.
Perhaps it’s worth taking a moment each night to write down something lucky, something kind, and something that made you happy.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 292. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe