Lucky New Year

I was thinking about luck while I was looking back at "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" by Nathaniel Branden. One of the six pillars is the practice of self-responsibility. It's really the opposite of hanging out and waiting for good luck. Branden states that self-responsibility is essential to self-esteem as well as a manifestation of self-esteem. We are responsible for the achievement of our desires, and knowing that is empowering. No one is coming; luck is not waiting around the corner. What happens is up to us.

Then I found the book "The Luck Factor: Changing Your Luck, Changing Your Life: The Four Essential Principles" by Richard Wiseman. He conducted studies over a period of 8 years and discovered what makes some people more fortunate. He discovered that lucky people behave in ways that create good fortune. He supports Branden's view in that he found that a good part of what happens to us is defined by the way we think. It's not that different from the self-help adage of positive thinking, but it is a more refined and backed up by empirical data.

So here are the four principles that can create good fortune in your life according to Richard Wiseman:

1-Maximize Chance Opportunities
Lucky people are good at noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They are open to new experiences, are more relaxed and tend to have strong social networks.

2-Listen to Your Luck Hunches
Lucky people listen to their intuition and make decisions based on what they hear. They also do things like meditate and clear their minds so that they are in touch with their intuition.

3-Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are optimists. They expect a bright future. This expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and helps them persist in the face of failure.

4-Turn Bad Luck Into Good
Yes, lucky people make lemonade out of lemons. When faced with adversity they think that things could be worse, and take control to move on.

He also discovered that bad luck is funny if it's not happening to you. After a year of searching, here is what he determined to be the world's funniest joke:
Two New Jersey hunters go hunting. After a while, one of the hunters clutches his throat and falls to the ground, his eyes roll back, and he's lying there motionless. The other picks up his cell phone, dials 911, and says, "I think my friend is dead! I don't know what to do!" The operator says, "Just relax. Calm down. The first thing to do it to make certain that your friend is dead." There's a pause-then a gunshot. The hunter gets back on the phone and says, "Okay, now what?"
And here's some quotes :

Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't work for the rabbit.
R.E. Shay

I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.
Steven Wright

Any fool can have bad luck; the art consists in knowing how to exploit it.
Frank Wedekind

My wish for you is good fortune in the coming year and all the years to come.