How Important is Luck to Your Happiness?

My day so far has been all about luck. 

This morning's New York Times has a heartfelt editorial by their dean of MIddle Eastern reporting, Thomas Friedman that the Times headlined "Looking for Luck in Libya."  Friedman supports Obama's choices in Libya, agrees with Obama's rationale, yet compellingly details lots of contingencies in the region that could blow up Obama's decision.  Though he feels that Obama could have done no other than he did, he closes his column with: "Dear Lord, please make President Obama lucky."

I've been listening to a podcast about one of my hometown teams, the Celtics.  Three months ago, they might have been the most-enjoyable basketball team I'd yet experienced.  Then they had a seemingly-minor bit of bad luck.  A backup forward, Marquis Daniels, had a freak, scary fall on his tailbone and damaged his spine.  It turns out he had a pre-existing spinal condition.  He might never play again.  So, clearly, that's extreme bad luck for him personally, but I'm going to focus on the impact on the team.  I'm told the team had a trade in place to bring back one of their former players to replace Daniels, but that was scuttled when the other team had an injury of their own just before the trade was consummated.  Because of both of those things, dominoes fell such that the Celtics traded one of their starters, Kendrick Perkins, to try to cover the hole that Daniels' injury put them in.  And the team, for the moment, has collapsed as a result.  Maybe a bad decision by their GM.  But certainly an instance of freak bad luck.

And when we think about it, most of all of our lives is dominated by luck.  You were born where you were to the family you had, for good or ill.  I read this massive biography of Warren Buffett a couple years back and he talked about how there was no such thing as a self-made person, that any such person was a "winner of the cosmic lottery" by virtue of, say, being born in America where they could make their fortune rather than in most of the rest of the world where it wouldn't have been possible.

And yet a particular focus on luck is also a backbone of contemporary nihilism.  Woody Allen's well-received but chilly movie Match Point is a meditation on this.  It uses the central metaphor of a high-stakes tennis match.  At the key point of the match, your shot slams into the tape at the top of the net and bounces straight up.  If it bounces back your way, you get nothing.  If it bounces the other way, you get riches.  50-50.  The bounce itself has no intrinsic meaning, though it will determine the rest of your life.  Luck.

So how important is luck to your happiness?

Your view of God will certainly play into your answer, even if you start with a strong belief in God.  I've been listening to Charles Park's provocative recent sermon series "Parables for the Secular Age."  He strongly lobbies against a view, which he would see as anti-biblical, that God "controls" all outcomes.  Instead, he pitches that what our hearts most crave is the close presence of God in whatever outcome in fact happens in our lives.  Yes, he says, we're roundly encouraged to pray for good outcomes, for "good luck."  And those prayers may well make all the difference.  But at the end of the day, what we want is the actual presence of God over and above any given outcome.

But that's a bold claim!  Would we really rather have a close connection with God while we're on death row more than not having that presence while we star in a string of Hollywood blockbusters?

Clearly all of us would rather have both luck and God.  But some great thinkers see this as perhaps the most-fundamental question of all.  Is banking on luck opposed to banking on God?

How important is luck to your happiness?

Comments

[John West]

Hey Dave,
Interesting post. I've recently had a few conversations about luck,and perspective. I've even thought some about perspective in the story of Eden. When the humans perceive shortage (and God as stingy) actual shortage is the eventual outcome (of course there is more going on, but I think it is fascinating that they perceive God and the good garden as somehow stingy and then - post fall - the ground does actually become stingy).

I'm far from advocating the power of positive thinking, but still I do think there is something quite powerful about perspective as this Psychology Today article points out: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201005/make-your-own-luck

I think that the perspective God is with us and God is good while certainly not guaranteeing "good luck" will give us a perspective that will make us more likely to notice happy circumstances.

[Brent]

This made me think of this movie 'Soul Surfer' that Christians are pushing so hard right now before it comes out. It's one of these inspirational true stories...a 13 year old budding surfing champion is just starting what promises to be an amazing career when a 15-ft tiger shark bites her arm off. BITES HER ARM OFF! Bad luck, to put it mildly. But within a month she's back on the board and within a couple years competing in and winning national surfing competitions. Luck didn't seem to impact her (potential for) happiness all that much.

Unrelatedly, I always get a bit annoyed at the argument that is 'lucky' to be born into some particular situation/time/place/to such and such parents. The counter to that is that you could NOT have been born anywhere or anywhen else. That because a huge part of what makes you you is a unique recombination of the DNA of your biological parents. So, you could only be born to them, and they to your grandparents, etc. This surfer girl, both her parents were professional surfers. Probably played a role.

but I'm on board with the general theme (btw, Greg Boyd is doing a sermon series right now called 'Crap Happens' dealing with this issue). There is no good reason this or that happens, why this child dies and that one doesn't, etc. And we shouldn't in general worry about looking for reasons where there aren't any (this is, I think, mostly what the book of Job is about). But we should rely on God's promises to be with us in our suffering and to ultimately use tragedy to bring forth beauty.

[Paul]

hmm...this is interesting. So I can grab a hold of the concept that if we hold a category of 'luck' in our minds it seems a capricious God that we serve. AND I sense God drawing me to Him...and recognize my desire for deeper intimacy.

I've been pursuing risky dreams in recent years ... believing I'm living it out in relationship with a living God. I've been reminded again and again how relationship with my human father influences (both positively and negatively) my current relationship with God.

My fresh realization is how my human father was less a partner in my dreams (and even helping me uncover my dreams) than I now hoped for him to be. I'm sorting through what that means for me today...and particularly in relationship with God. So I hope for God to be a partner in my journey, even to lead me on the way (and into deeper awareness of who I am and intimacy with Him).

So I'm starting to get that its good for its own sake for me to pursue my risky dreams and yet have experienced deeper faith through taking risks with God and found positive outcome. ...I suddenly feel I'm rambling.

Seems expectations fit in here somewhere. I pursue my dreams expecting a certain outcome. If it doesn't happen than are my only mental choices that God is not in control or bad luck? Maybe I'm missing the point here (its late). I guess I'd just feel a bit less hopeful if I didn't sense that God was on my side and had some power to influence good stuff on my behalf (even if the outcome was not what I expected nor could see it as good in the moment). And 'good stuff' in my mind is relationship with God, but in any relationship if there's not emotional connection based on shared life experience that's positive in some way...the value of the relationship goes way down in my estimation.

[Kevin]

Nice B.S. Report reference

[Michael The Haggard]

I live in a country (Taiwan) dominated by the religion of luck. Gods cannot grant or make promises, they can only grant a quality of "more luck" or "better luck" but other gods and spirits can jimmy that with "negative luck" at their whim. In philosophical theology, if there is luck that God is subject to then God is not sovereign and cannot guarantee that his promises will come to pass. I am willing to allow for "chance" in a world where God holds back and allows freedom... but to call it luck is a dangerous slipper slope into a kind of pantheism when the one God is not in control of all things and who cannot make promises that can be taken in faith.

[Brent]

I don't think there are any claims here that God is not sovereign or that everything happens by chance. Those aren't the choice. One can still affirm God's constant activity in the world and in our lives AND affirm that he is not an all-controlling God. Rather, his activity is more subtle, one of servant-like, bottom-up influence (effected through love) rather than top-down, tyrant-like control. That, to me, makes the value of relationship with God go way up. God is with us in our journey and experiences things with us,and he is not powerless to help.

It is only in that sort of scenario, I think, that faith plays its role. We can trust that God will be with us and carry us through, and in the end redeem us, no matter how bad things get.

[Steven]

to luck or not to luck? sometime i wonder about success and that's all about. like paul, i am also pursuing a risky dream and like him, i think there have been inherent benefits in the actual pursual of, even if the achievement of does not happen. you have to wonder, even if i get the dream, what point is there in it? will it really make me happy? was that the point anyway? does it really have meaning? why?

then that makes you think of the point of life. i suppose the point is to have meaning. can luck give you meaning? i suppose it can cause pain or pleasure or give the semblance of meaning. but if you really thought about it (which happens rarely for me anyway) it really shouldn't. but then what if god controls everything then it does have meaning. argh-i don't know.

sometimes i wonder where our dreams fit in with god's purpose and meaning. isn't it enough to just have the presence or maybe then are our endeavors there to bring us closer to the presence? yeah, i don't know.