I think I hit rock bottom on luck when I saw the freshman from Western Kentucky hit the game-winning shot that would end the season for my Aggies. Was it a lucky shot? I thought. Or did luck have anything to do with it.
I can't exactly say I'm the luckiest guy I know, but I've had my share of luck all the same … I think.
Actually, I'm not so sure I know what luck is. I mean I've heard the Irish are fairly lucky, but then why the famine?
I've heard lottery winners such as the ones that came out of Las Cruces recently are lucky, but I've also heard stories about how money has torn families apart. Guys get lucky, but girls can have bad luck with guys. You can have luck on a test, but if you study you don't need luck.
People who gamble sometimes get lucky. You do have to be 'in it to win it.'
New Mexico gives a lottery scholarship, with proceeds from the New Mexico Lottery, going to those lucky enough to attend college. With one unlucky semester you can lose it as soon as you get it if you don't want it. I guess it's not luck, but a question of want.
A lot of people have lucky charms –– some even eat Lucky Charms –– but does it help? Do they work? I guess for some it may be a comfort. But that could just be a lucky guess.
A friend of mine told me he wears Lucky Brand jeans. Does that help him get lucky with the ladies, or is it just a marketing ploy? Are there lucky jeans or just lucky genes?
Coming from the Greeks in the fourth century, horseshoes are said to be the most universal of luck items. Now, I can't figure this out. A shoe from a horse is lucky? Was he so lucky to have it nailed to his foot? And how come I'm never as lucky as my friends when we toss horseshoes?
Rabbits' feet. How the hell did these become so lucky? What is our obsession with taking things off animals and calling them lucky? The rabbit wasn't so lucky to have his foot sawed off.
Black cats are unlucky. Why? What makes the color of a pet, or pal, so unlucky? And pink elephants are lucky? Now, I'm not God, I may be a god, but I'm not the God, but what if a black cat and pink elephant mated? Or a lucky rabbit and black cat. What would you get then? An Even-Steven offspring.
I'm not sure I believe in luck. Karma maybe, but not luck.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, "Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect."
So I guess it's true, success is not a matter of good luck, but of effort.
But I still feel I'm down on my luck. I failed a midterm, the Aggies aren't in the Big Dance, I lost my scholarship, I ran out of Lucky Charms and there is no way I can get a bunny and cat to mate.
With St. Patty's Day coming, things are going to start to go my way.
"We must believe in luck," Jean Cocteau once said. "For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like."
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