I don’t believe in luck… That is to say, I don’t believe in good luck. I mean, bad shit happens all the time, but so does the good stuff. If you spend your time and energy throwing yourself into superstitions — avoiding walking under ladders and crossing the street to avoid a black cat — you’re like, not really living to me.
Good things and bad things will happen to you whether you make yourself consciously aware of them or not… They’ll both assault you, unwarranted, whether you’re a GOOD person or a BAD person. We’re all just people bouncing back and forth and experiencing things, both good and bad.
If you ask Devon, she’ll tell you I’m lucky. I remember one weekend recently, we’re sitting on her back porch, pontificating about life and waxing poetic or some shit. Probably just drinking and smoking too much, but this is when we really get our hands dirty with conversation. I was going on and on about how life is hard and I’m so tired of tribulations and when is the sun going to shine on me?! Just, you know… Emo-girl shit. And she scoffs at me and in her gentle, soft-voice way, she says, “Jami… You are one of the luckiest people I know.” I laughed, “How do you figure?”
“Every single time the shit has hit the fan, you’ve had people… safety nets… yourself. You never hit the pavement because you’ve always got somebody in your corner, even if it’s just you tenaciously fighting off the bad stuff. You don’t have bad luck because bad things happen. You have good luck because when bad things happen, you always bounce back.”
And it’s true. I do! But I’m still not sure I believe in luck. I mean, we create our own destinies. We decide, Choose Your Own Adventure-style, how we’re going to live our lives…
Are you going to go into the dark and scary cave? Turn to page 42. Do you want to turn back and find another way around this mountain? Turn to page 16.
This is why I always had a really hard time believing in God, as far as the Southern Christian version of God. I don’t think God is up in heaven, darting eyes fixated on you and then you, now you and then that guy over there, and what are you up to now? Wait, look over there! Fuck that. God made us. I do believe that. Even if he made us as specks and grew us in a petri dish that we call the planet Earth, I think we were all created by something. But is he watching us intently? Fixating on our every move? Going, “Aw snap!” when we do something good and then groaning, “Aw shit!” when we do something bad? Pfft. I don’t think so.
I think God is up there, somewhere… Or maybe all around us, who knows. That point doesn’t matter really because it would be impossible to try to prove. But whatever God/god/goddess is, the point is this: that he just IS. The same way we just ARE.
If I had a tagline ever in my life (other than “Kick You In The Nuts!”), it would be the old cliche, everything happens for a reason. There’s a reason that you work where you work, that you live where you live… That you get your heart broken by that one guy that one time and even stupid things — why you broke your ankle or why you got really drunk that one night and cut all your hair off (guilty!). You may never, ever KNOW why. And that’s the beautiful part of it. You can’t spend your whole life wondering about all the infinite reasons why things are the way they are — you just are supposed to live your life.
End of story. Spend your energy on things that matter… The rest of it is just supposed to happen to us.
No related posts.
aaaaMEN! we are where we are because we’re supposed to be there. and those of us that can accept that and roll with it will have a lot more time to enjoy what makes our hearts soar than those that spend a lot of time crying about it.
Well said, Jammipants.
your dada’s coach used to tell them that luck was when preparation meets opportunity. i do think i believe in karma a bit though. i think you get what you are meant to get to learn things along the way- but i also think that if you are evil and mean – you will eventually get what is coming to you as well… but then again i do believe in heaven and hell!
Hey there! This is my first time coming to your blog but I wanted to comment and let you know, “I get it.”
As a matter of fact, your cliched tag line “Everything happens for a reason” will be my 6th tattoo as soon as the divorce judge signs the papers. However, I’m getting it in Latin “Omnia Causa Fiunt” because I like to feel all pretentious and stuff when people don’t understand the foreign language.
Thanks for the comment! I love new peoples. :)