Lucky Charms
Boston Condos for Sale and Rent
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Have you ever found a penny on the ground, only to discover that it was headed up? According to popular belief, finding a penny facing up brings good luck. This superstition has been around for decades and is deeply rooted in American culture.
Why do I bring this up?
While jogging, I spot a Dinah coin on the ground, beside a Nissan. Out of superstition, I always pick up such windfall. Later today, I guarantee I’ll be a penny short picking up items at CVS.
I bend down, just as the snoozing Nissan driver wakes up and pushes the door open, whacking my head.
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I must confess I sometimes for breakfast I have a bowl of Lucky Charm cereal.
Why do I bring this up?
I was reading an article written by Seth entitled luck and I thought he brought up some interesting points.
Lucky charms
We’d rather not claim luck. Good luck feels like something was unearned. And bad luck sounds like an excuse.
The false promise of meritocracy decries luck in all its forms.
And yet…
Among famous colleges, perhaps one in five qualified applicants are admitted. Here’s what that means:
The school could make a list of every student who is ‘good’ enough to get in. The combination of background, test scores, grades, activities, all of it. Every student who, under some circumstances, would be happily admitted.
They could send a note to every one of those students telling them that they are finalists, and now, a random number generator is going to pick 20% of them.
Because that’s what they’re actually doing anyway.
If you got rejected, perhaps it would be better to know that you were a finalist and then you got unlucky, instead of blaming yourself and some imagined defect.
And the same goes for countless things that happen to us in our lives. That I was lucky to get that Boston condo for sale. That I was unlucky to not get that big meeting years ago…
Giving credit (or blame) to luck makes it easier to get back to the hard work of making things better.
