Why we no longer Believe in Luck
- Jacelyn Chu
- Jan 19, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 26, 2022
As a civilisation, we have a painfully limited understanding of Luck. We still believe 13 is an unlucky number and 7 is a lucky number. That’s about how far we have come. The Renaissance — which saw the rediscovery of the arts, culture, politics and economics — has come and gone, but we’ve somehow overlooked the study of Luck, a phenomenon that is so deeply intertwined in our daily lives and most importantly, our destinies.
Luck: A situation where a person is affected by a random event over which they have no control
Destiny: A response to fate, where man creates opportunities for himself and carves his own future
Our Relationship with Luck:
From a young age, I think I’ve been subconsciously trained to keep my distance from Luck. This serves as a good defence mechanism, because the illusion of Luck can consume us if we’re not careful. If we buy into it, we’ll end up sitting idly on the sidelines, while the dedicated, hustling, hard-working people pass us by on their road to success. For instance, Seth Godin and J.K. Rowling both got rejected by publishers countless times before they became best-selling authors. Luck usually shows up after you’ve gone far enough in whatever you’re working on that you deserve recognition on some level. In this sense, Luck is a recognition of hard work. Luck is the result of hard work, patience, and persistence. But that’s merely one aspect of Luck.
What I’m interested in, is how our modern attitudes towards Luck have impacted the ways we perceive ourselves and others. Singapore, where I’m from, is a society that believes in fairness at the beginning of the race. But once the starting pistol goes, it's winner takes all. It's very frenetic to live in such a society. It rewards it’s winners generously, but in many ways, it punishes its losers.
A loser: Somebody who has failed according to the rules of the game that they have signed up to
I find it rather surprising that things didn’t use to be like this. In the Middle Ages, in the United Kingdom, the word for somebody who was at the bottom of society was an 'unfortunate'. Literally, somebody who, perhaps through no fault of their own, had failed because of the actions of fortune - the goddess of fortune - an 'unfortunate'. Nowadays, in modern meritocracies, you're a winner, or you're a loser. In other words, we have made, in Singapore, a meritocratic society where success is deserved, but failure is also deserved.
What does all this have to do with Luck? We’re seeing a trend: along with the rapid advancement in education levels, we’re also becoming increasingly skeptical towards the role of luck in influencing our destinies. Why? In modern societies, luck is often being associated with supernatural forces, which we believe violates our rational approach to the world. Thus, we downplay our beliefs in “higher powers”, deities, Luck, and are — more than ever — firmly committed to the idea that “you make your own Luck,” viewing Luck as nothing more than a by-product of effort.
The Problem:
When we hold ourselves so personally responsible for the arc of our destinies, we often end up carrying our whole stories. There’s no other explanation for our failures. We do not believe that luck plays an important role in success or failure, as we believe it undermines the work we’ve put into whatever they are trying to achieve. This is how living in a meritocracy can be very brutal for those at the bottom. Meanwhile, the fortunate is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate. Understandably, they need to know that they have a right to their good fortune.
Perhaps this is why it’s increasingly a challenge to be compassionate society. Sociologist Max Weber observed the tendency for people to justify inequality in terms of deservedness: In order to legitimise our fortunes, we want to be convinced that they ‘deserve’ it, and above all, that we deserve it in comparison with others. This shows that what’s missing in the meritocratic modern world is our ability to empathise with those that have fallen. Instead, they are often subjected to ridicule because we are no longer in touch with that sense of ‘the unfortunate’.
Although merit and hard work is a determinant of success, they are not the only ones. Over a century’s worth of sociological research has demonstrated that political and social structures also play a key role in determining life chances. The element of luck ensures that we do not all step to the betting table of life with equal odds of winning. Capital, in its various forms and types, tilts the odds—sometimes to an immense degree—in favour of some and against others, and such factor are almost entirely dependent on luck.
Actionable takeaways:
I remember cringing internally whenever a peer wished me "good luck", but I'm starting to uncover the possibly negative repercussions of being such a skeptic towards luck. It’s the reason why most of us, in the modern world, operate with a daunting feeling of personal responsibility, constantly pushing ourselves to match our highest expectations and berating ourselves for failure. The first thing is to recognise this mentality and to treat ourselves with compassion. It must be noted that luck is not some elusive, mystical force. It’s a real phenomenon, as much a ‘thing’ as the word green.
Luck remains a crucial concept in what it means to be kind to ourselves and to others. So what does being a kind person mean? To me, it means having a rich sense of how people might have ended up where they’ve ended up. It means not rushing to judgement and being aware of the various uncontrollable forces (a.k.a. luck) that could lead to certain outcomes. It means having a lot of imagination around what destiny and fate have in store for everyone.
Resources
Article: A Sociology of Luck
Book: Status Anxiety
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