Luck Is a State of Mind

“Oh, so you’re going to Atlantic City? Good luck.” Sound familiar? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told “good luck” in my life. What is luck, anyway? A typical dictionary would describe it as “good fortune, advantage or success, considered as the result of chance.” But if you haven’t caught on by now, my thinking isn’t typical and is far from conventional. To me, luck is a state of mind—nothing else.

In the past year there has been a huge following for these books and videos called “The Secret.” Have you seen or heard of it? I have. I watched the video to see what all the hype was about. Truth be told, I still don’t know. Why? Well, after about five minutes of the video I was passed out like I used to be in college after a week straight of partying. “The Secret is all about training your mind to think positively.” Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don’t already know. I think you make your own luck. You certainly don’t get lucky sitting on your ass. You get lucky by doing, being proactive and by putting yourself in the right place at the right time.

Why is luck a state of mind? Let me tell you what I think. I’m sure some of you know someone who has a good luck charm; whether it’s a lucky pair of underwear, a charm bracelet, or one of those stupid fucking trinkets that poker players put on top of their cards. At some point, those people had to have something good to them while that object was present. Therefore, they associate “luck” with those objects. All of a sudden these people feel empowered in the presence of their beloved little good luck charm. How did this happen? I’m no psychologist—far from it. But it seems to me that these people began to change the way their mind worked. They changed their state of mind from feeling unlucky to feeling like a leprechaun with a four leaf clover stuck up his ass on St. Patrick’s Day. Now, when presented with a situation, these newfound lucky individuals start to have more good things happen to them. They call this luck, and they consider it to be a matter of chance. What they don’t realize is that they’ve created their own luck by thinking positively.

So you have the good luck charm people, and then you have the superstitious people. These feeble minded morons actually believe that a certain action or occurrence will actually bring them bad luck. I can hear it now, a nervous nelly saying “Oh no, that kid just walked under a ladder. He’s going to have bad luck for 10 years!’ Fuck that. Do me a favor. Tomorrow, get your hands on the first ladder you can find, unfold that bitch and walk back and forth under it as many times as you can before you get dizzy. Piss on the black cat when you walk away, too, if you feel so inclined. If you think the black cat or the ladder will bring you bad luck, well, then it probably will. This is because in every situation you put yourself in from then on, you will be expecting bad luck. Are you starting to realize how ridiculous that sounds?

The best good luck charm you could have, if one even exists, is your mind. Your mind is the most powerful tool, charm, or whatever the hell you want to call it. In a dog eat dog world, only the strong thrive, and the weak barely get by. Do you want to barely get by or do you want to be successful, liquid, and on top of your trade? I’ll tell you what, the next time you go play poker, try out this mental exercise: After the dealer has dealt you your cards, and before you’ve looked at them, tell yourself what you want the cards to be. Then look at them one by one. You have to be “feeling it” to have this work, so you shouldn’t try this every time. However, you’d be surprised at how many times this actually works. It works for me, so try it out. And remember, if you sit around for a lucky streak to come along, don’t be surprised if it never comes. If you want a lucky streak, go make it happen. Period.