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Luck

What is luck?

Luck is success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

So luck can be either positive or negative.

Then, to be lucky, means to have your outcomes governed by chance and not choice, right?

Not exactly

Lucky is having, bringing or resulting from good luck. The success half of luck. And the reverse:

The failure half of luck: bad luck, is to be unlucky.

Yeah, you follow?

Me neither

I don't understand how this word's adjective form became some sort of Yin and Yang situation.

Like if you're hairy,

then, you possess lots of hair.

Hair is a constant.

There's no good hair or bad hair, and if you don't have hair, you're not unhairy.

You're bald.

To wish someone good luck, is to express your wish for their success. Then, why not just say I wish you success?

Because to wish luck on someone, is to remind them the aspect of chance. A chance to fail or succeed.

It's like if you're about to take your final exam and your friend went: "Hey. Don't worry, man"

"You're either gonna fail or pass this."

Oh, thanks.

I was hoping those were the only two possible outcomes.

What else was gonna happen, Jim?

Right before I finished the test, I'd grow a second nose out of my elbow and sneeze confetti out of it? [sarcasm]

Come on!

Maybe if they were at a talent show, and you wen: "Hey, man. you're ready for this good luck on flipping that coin."

Thanks, I hope it lands on heads.

Then, I feel that would make more sense.

A couple of months ago....

I posted a picture of my food on Instagram.

*Shameless plug* @omnomdomz

And someone commented: Ah man, lucky.

To which I thought,

Wait a minute. I did not obtain this dish out of luck.

I did not stumble into this restaurants front doors and food appeared in front of me without my influence.

I chose to go to this restaurant shout out to: Donburi on Markham.

And I selected this specific item from the menu.

Was it luck that caused the owners and chefs to put it on the menu?

No.

I'm sure they didn't go: "Oh, whoops"

"I guess it's on the menu now. How fortunate of you, may I take your order"

Actually, I got many comments, that it was bad luck for me to leave my chopsticks in my rice because in Japanese culture sticking your

Chopsticks upright in your rice is how it's offered to the spirit of the dead at their deathbed or photograph.

I don't mean to undermine Japanese culture, and I know that's just a glorified way to say 'no offense but'.

But I'm neither dead nor a photograph. And if a spirit was drooling over my spicy salmon don,

I'd be more than happy to share because it's a lot of food and sometimes

I-I can't finish on my own. I mean, I guess it was lucky that the restaurant was open at the time [that] I was hungry.

It was lucky that I didn't live too far from the restaurant.

It was lucky that my parents chose the Toronto area to live in and raise me here.

Then, that means, I was lucky that I was simply born because I guess I can't be lucky to have been able to enjoy that

don if I didn't exist.

But I know that's not what they meant.

The state of being lucky or fortunate,

isn't even consistent. It's dependent on perspective and who's saying it. Like if, Billie got sick and couldn't go to work

I'd be like: "wow man. That's pretty unlucky"

but to Billie who just got a Nintendo switch for Christmas

He gets to stay home and play games all day, but I guess he's still sick

and that's unfortunate so actually it's both lucky and unlucky.

depending on how much you weigh being able to play video games.

I guess you could have just lied and pretended to be sick. I don't know it's not the best example, but you get it.

I hope.

If we wish to believe we are in control of our lives and can mold our own paths

Then why remind ourselves of the constant possibility of failing to achieve that?

Sorry, I just finished watching West World

And I've been having a lot of existential thoughts. Great show! I highly recommend you watch it,

if you don't mind some violence and nudity.

Of course, there are some aspects of our lives that are out of our control and are up to chance and that

is what luck is.

An outcome not determined by our actions.

But wishing someone good luck is kind of redundant because there are all sorts of possible outcomes in our lives

caused by factors that we cannot control. If the roads are icy and my friend said 'good luck driving home'

I'd be like: "thanks, but well

I still need that luck on an non-icy day as well, because

There's always a chance some drunk asshole might T-bone me; regardless of the road conditions."

Even telling someone to be safe

It's a nice and endearing expression, but kind of unnecessary. I say to my loved ones

And I know it doesn't make sense

Of course you're gonna try and be safe to the best of your ability the factors that put you in danger

Or cause you harm are most likely out of your control. Like, telling me to be safe on my flight is a nice gesture

But realistically, my safety is in the hands of the pilot and the weather. Two entities that I do not have an influence on.

So in those cases, good luck is actually what I need.

So, what we can agree upon is that our luck, our chances are

Determined by another entity's success or failure.

Someone fails to show up for their dinner reservation therefore my party and I get to obtain their seats, instead of waiting twenty more minutes.

Lucky

Someone successfully purchases the last copy of that one game that I particularly wanted a hard copy of.

Unlucky

Unless you've willingly involved yourself in a game of chance and RNG, luck is not a thing you want wished upon yourself.

It's all skill, baby

Despite all this, I still say good luck to people. The dissected meaning of the word doesn't make sense to me

But I just don't have something else that's not as much of a mouthful as I wish you success

Hmm, maybe we can shorten it a bit?

Much like how 'goodbye' became a contraction of 'God be with thee' as a form of salutation in parting.

Okay, so let's see here.

"I wish you success"?

We can just take out the I.

"Wish you success"?

"You success"?

"You succ"?

You succ?

*tsk tsk*

I like it.

So with the end of 2017 and the new upcoming year, my dear audience: 'you succ'

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A few weeks ago, I finished Kevin Hart's

"I Can't Make This Up", and I found myself laughing both my butt cheeks off, when I listen to it in the car.

So I decided to also get Trevor

Noah's "Born a Crime" and Aziz Ansari's "Modern Romance"

If you guys have any audible favourites that you think I should check out

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