Is there any such thing as luck? Or is it just a myth? How often have we heard the adages “luck beats handsome” and “I rather be lucky than good”?
Today, perhaps, might be the ideal date to consider the subject. In an article titled “Why December 28th is the unluckiest day of the year” posted five years ago, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Julia Wright delved into the subject.
“Forget Friday the 13th. According to ancient folklore, Dec 28 is the unluckiest day on the Christian calendar,” Wright wrote. “At one time, the day known as the Feast of the Holy Innocents or, alternatively, as Childermass, was considered cursed — ‘so much so,’ according to Francis Kildale’s 1855 Glossary of Yorkshire Words and Phrases, ‘that the day of the week on which it falls is marked as a black day for the whole year to come.’
“No important affair is taken in hand on Childermass Day, and the sailors are heedful not to leave their port in the way of beginning a voyage under any consideration. In the 1886 text Legends and Superstitions of the County of Durham, William Brockie warns, ‘it is very unlucky to begin any work [whatsoever] on this day.’ In Brand’s Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, it is noted that ‘this day is of most unlucky omen. None ever marries on a Childermas Day’.
“No weddings, no travel… How Dec 28 got such an ominous reputation has to do with folklore, infant mortality, and a paranoid madman emperor who lived in 73 BC.”
The emperor to whom Wright referred was King Herod who, according to the biblical Christmas story, had issued the command to slaughter all the young male children of Bethlehem; that event became known as Childermas.
The passage of time might have somewhat erased the beliefs that enfold the ominous, dark history of today, the 28th of December. However, the question remains, will those of us, who are aware of this forbidding date, ‘chance our luck’ and venture to do one of the activities advised against? Or will we offer a frivolous excuse or cite superstition as a way out, once we are conscious of today’s cloudy past?
We all know persons who are deemed lucky or who are believed to have ‘lucky seeds in their pockets’. These are people who seem to sail through life, blessed at every fork in the road. They attend the right schools, make the right connections, choose or are guided/pointed to the right professions. Even if they change jobs they still somehow manage to land on their feet and move up the ladder at the right companies. They also move in the right social circles. Are those who enjoy these lifestyles the beneficiaries of strokes of luck? Or is it the case that we fail to see the hard work that goes on behind the scenes?
The tendency to accept the existence of luck as a force or factor in life is compounded by the fact that only a relatively small percentage of the population seems to luxuriate in this mercurial entity, which appears to be beyond mere description, control, or acquisition by any means; it is unquantifiable.
The general wisdom is to explain away unaccountable factors or events by referring to the unknown variable element involved as luck. Cricket commentators will immediately remind listeners and viewers, on a batsman attaining the century mark, that “he was lucky to have been dropped by the wicket keeper before he got off the mark.” The advent of instant television replay in many professional sports has gone a long way toward eliminating the idea that certain teams always got the ‘lucky bounces’ or the ‘lucky calls’ from the umpires or referees. However, sports enthusiasts will point out that these teams still get the ’lucky breaks’ off the field of play, always managing to acquire the right players in the draft or trades.
Those persons we consider as lucky will proffer the explanation that their ever-evolving fortuitous stations in life are the result of opportunities met with preparedness and that their apparent luck is the residue of design. Their magic formula is rather simple (like most good things in life): Preparation + Action + Opportunity = Luck. Sounds too simple to be true. Perhaps it is, since it requires the discipline to continuously make the right decisions that support rather than counter one’s intended outcome.
Opportunity does come knocking, but very often, when it shows up, we are not ready for it, hence we either dismiss it or succumb to fear rather than accept it; then we bemoan that we are unlucky because it never knocks twice. Whereas those who have prepared for the opportunity, creating the infrastructure and lining up the resources are ready to capitalize on it. Preparation is based on action – doing the work that no one wants to do that neither brings immediate reward nor success but trusting anyway that the harvest will come.
As 2022 draws to a close, many of us might be considering ourselves to be unlucky or ‘down on our luck’. But are we? Or is it the case that we have deliberately chosen the path of least resistance?
While 28th December might historically have been known as the unluckiest day of the year, there was no day designated as its exact opposite. Therefore, even if we chose to believe the lore, the fact remains that in the average year, there are another 364 days for anyone to be lucky. We should all seek to pursue those moments in 2023.
