Are you lucky?

[omni550]

Teaching luck as a skill....

By the 1990s, he had taken on an unconventional project—running experiments on self-proclaimed lucky and unlucky people and attempting to quantify their differences. “His research is hilarious,” says Carter. “He takes people who self-define as lucky and people who don’t say they’re lucky, and then he puts a $20 bill in the street and the lucky people notice them and pick them up. And unlucky people don’t.”

https://nautil.us/blog/-the-key-to-good-luck-is-an-open-mind

omni

 

[RobbieB]

I'm lucky, picked up a $10 bill in the grocery lot going in yesterday -

 

[Souschef]

I think I am lucky. I was chatting with a widow in an on line grief chat room. We had lost our spouses about the same time. She asked me where I lived, and I told her. Turned out we lived 40 miles apart in Southern Calif.
I suggested we meet for lunch half way, and we did..........
We were married on the island of Santorini in 2007.

 

[HFWR]

I get lucky on occasion...

 

[OldShooter]

I'm lucky. The joint probability of being born in the US, white, male, healthy, and to college graduate parents who appreciated the value of education means I'd effectively won the lottery before I ever pooped in a diaper.

 

[nash031]

I'm lucky. The joint probability of being born in the US, white, male, healthy, and to college graduate parents who appreciated the value of education means I'd effectively won the lottery before I ever pooped in a diaper.

Agreed.

-Warren Buffett

 

[Dtail]

I'm lucky. The joint probability of being born in the US, white, male, healthy, and to college graduate parents who appreciated the value of education means I'd effectively won the lottery before I ever pooped in a diaper.

+1
Sometimes taken for granted.

 

[Meadbh]

I was lucky to be born healthy in Europe to parents with no higher education but the vision and commitment to providing their daughter with the best possible one. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Then I worked really hard to make the most of my good fortune.

 

[HadEnuff]

I think Norman Vincent Peale would have no problem explaining this as another version of the The Power of Positive Thinking. My own personal experience has shown me that when I was in a positive frame of mind I was more open to opportunities, and good things seemed to happen as a result of my decision making.
Unfortunately for me, at times I let negativity cloud my thinking. Typically this lead to decisions that I would eventually regret. Much like most people, I imagine.

 

[Midpack]

 

[Moemg]

I always felt I won the lottery for best ever parents so I am lucky !

 

[RobbieB]

Work? I thought this was a retirement forum.

 

[Meadbh]

Work? I thought this was a retirement forum.

W*rk = process
RE = outcome

 

[bssc]

I think that I am lucky but no one will play Monopoly with me because they think I have a strategy.

 

[CaliKid]

I'm lucky. The joint probability of being born in the US, white, male, healthy, and to college graduate parents who appreciated the value of education means I'd effectively won the lottery before I ever pooped in a diaper.

All that and then I have worked my butt off for almost 30 years. However, the lucky foundation helped no doubt.

 

[NW-Bound]

Teaching luck as a skill....

By the 1990s, he had taken on an unconventional project—running experiments on self-proclaimed lucky and unlucky people and attempting to quantify their differences. “His research is hilarious,” says Carter. “He takes people who self-define as lucky and people who don’t say they’re lucky, and then he puts a $20 bill in the street and the lucky people notice them and pick them up. And unlucky people don’t.”

https://nautil.us/blog/-the-key-to-good-luck-is-an-open-mind

omni

Interesting article!

My wife picked up a $20 bill recently outside a grocery store.

In our daily walk around the neighborhood, I routinely pick up nuts and bolts that fall off cars. If their threads still look good, I save them in a can in the garage. I pay attention where I walk, because I want to avoid dog poops. Stepping on dog poop would be very unlucky, and I do not want to be unlucky.

And I'd better stop talking about dog poop too, because it makes me angry.

No money during our walk though. It's harder these days to find money, because people use credit cards. I often have no cash in my wallet to even drop on the ground.

The other day, I picked up a spanking new AC1300 dual-band router, and reported about that here.

 

[RobbieB]

Nuts and bolts that fell off cars? Dogs poop where you walk? Amazing.

I was in another parking lot at another grocery a long time ago and saw a $20 on the ground. I scooped it up and looked around and sure enough there was another $20 twenty feet away.

But there was a woman proceeding towards it and she was closer than me. So I just stalled a bit dug into my pockets...and waited until she walked right over it and got that one too.

Where there is one there may be others -

And I do "get" the article.

 

[NW-Bound]

Do not find nuts and bolts everyday. But that's about most of what I've found.

And dog poop, yes. Most of the time, it's on some poor guy's lawn, but occasionally I see it on the sidewalk. Not every dog owner cleans up after their pets.

Need to have a law to deal with these dog owners. Like having them standing in a public square, wearing their pet's poop on their head for 1 hour.

 

[ugeauxgirl]

I'm lucky. The joint probability of being born in the US, white, male, healthy, and to college graduate parents who appreciated the value of education means I'd effectively won the lottery before I ever pooped in a diaper.

Me too- except female. And i always worked harder than I had to. But I know people who worked just as hard as I did and have not been as fortunate. Grateful for all I have every day.

 

[street]

I'm the luckiest person on earth. Life has been very good to me and am very thankful. I take walks everyday that I'm home and this winter/spring I have found $3.57 cent so on my walks. I'm always excited if I find a coin. LOL

 

[omni550]

I'm the luckiest person on earth. Life has been very good to me and am very thankful. I take walks everyday that I'm home and this winter/spring I have found $3.57 cent so on my walks. I'm always excited if I find a coin. LOL

I enjoy finding money, no matter how small. If someone is with me, as I pounce on it, I'll say (with slight grin and a pause), "...going towards my next million." (BTW, no one has any clue about my finances, so "next" million could easily be my "first" million.)

Whereas my sister will step over found money, while saying, "Someone else needs it more than I do."

Different strokes.

omni

 

[Mdlerth]

Well, do ya, punk?

I always figure he only fired five shots.

 

[scrabbler1]

I have written here before about an unusually lucky stretch I had in 2008 (in the months before I retired) when I found money laying around a few times. Once was on the sidewalk near my apartment building, a $5 and some singles. Then, I found a similar amount along with a MetroCard on an empty PATH train I had just boarded on the way to work. Also, a conductor on my LIRR train didn't check my ticket so I rode free a few times. And I happened to be at my dad's house when I noticed an unused LIRR train ticket being used as a bookmark in a library book he was reading. It wasn't his ticket, it was left there by a previous borrower. He doesn't use the LIRR, but the ticket was worth about $7 toward a future ride, so I took it. These lucky little freebies added up to about $40 in just a few months time.

 

[Nemo2]

A year or so after my late wife died, (when I was still feeling down), my oldest friend (of some 51 years now) said "Don't worry, something will turn up for you....it always does*"......not long afterward I met DW.

(*I've been in the right place at the right time, (often despite my own, perhaps subconscious, efforts to scuttle things), pretty much my entire life........Lucky? Yep.)

 

[NW-Bound]

Being lucky does not always mean one finds some free stuff. It can be just stuff below normal value.

For an electronic project I am doing for myself, I need a high quality contactor (relay). Searched and found on eBay one guy selling one that I could use for $10. Specs: 100A, 900Vdc. The key here is Vdc. Huge difference from regular and cheap relays used for air conditioning rated for 220Vac. Digikey has it for $95. So, I bought 5, new surplus industrial quality.

Still feel pretty good about this.