How to Be Happy #31: Be Lucky
In the Credence Clearwater Revival antiwar song “Fortunate Son,” the narrator tells listeners that he “ain’t no fortunate one,” in this case not fortunate enough to be a senator’s son or find some other way to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. It goes without saying that he is not happy about the situation.
And that takes us back, way back, to around 1387 and perhaps the original meaning of the word “happy,” as recounted by the Oxford English Dictionary, which is “of a person, favored by good fortune, lucky, fortunate, successful.” That leads in turn to the phrase “by happy chance,” which references an unexpected piece of good luck, which in turn leads, in my brain anyway, to “happenstance,” a circumstance regarded as due to chance.
But all that aside, being lucky, a word of which “happy” is a synonym, is described as “meeting with success that is unforeseen or is not the direct result of merit.” So it seems that being lucky is not under our control. Au contraire. There are ways, apparently, to get lucky. If you google “how can I get lucky?” you get over six million results. The top ones that pop up in the Bing search engine (they must have some in with Microsoft) include “9 Ways to Get Lucky in Life,” “20 Tips on How to Bring Luck into Your Life,” and “Get Lucky: 8 Time-Tested Methods to Boost Your Luck.” In the spirit of more is better, I checked out the 20 tips selection. I stopped reading, though, when the article seemed to suggest making offerings to Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fortune and fate (Tyche in the Greek pantheon). This would involve burning incense in my house or, worse, sacrificing an animal after first sprinkling its head with wine and sacred bread baked by the Vestal Virgins. (My cat just slinked out the door and went into hiding.)
Okay, so if more is not better, maybe “time-tested” will be. This list favors mindfulness things like thinking positive, visualizing accomplishments, looking in the mirror and complimenting yourself (more and more difficult to do these days), and rearranging your furniture (feng shui lets luck flow, apparently). I glossed over these because they involve an excessive amount of mental or physical activity. Then I got to “lucky charms and rituals.” Some people swear that wearing a favorite pair of socks or t-shirt increases their luck. Others engage in rituals such as playing a favorite song before they buy a lottery ticket.
On reading this, I realize I’ve been performing a ritual for years. Whenever I put on footwear, I always put on the left shoe first. Really. When I unthinkingly pick up the right shoe and start to put it on, I unfailingly catch myself and switch to the other one. So far, this has not produced a lottery win. Neither has touching the noses of the brass lions that guard a certain store on Duval Street or swearing that you saw a “lucky porpoise” while on a sightseeing ocean excursion.
So, while I will continue to put on my left shoe first, I’m no longer convinced that ritual will bring luck. I guess that all that’s left for me to become lucky is to change my name. Imagine my joy, if you will, when I discovered that one of my ancestral heroes, Leif Erikson, was also known as “Leif the Lucky” (Leifr hinn Heppini in Old Norse). With just a few keystrokes on LegalZoom, I could be “Lucky Pederson” (with a tip of the hat to blues legend Lucky Peterson). My theory is that if your name is Lucky and everyone calls you that, how can you not be?
Today’s lesson, then, is that if you would like to be happy, just change your name to “Lucky.” Go ahead. Try it out. Look in the mirror and say your new full name over and over again. I’m going to try this today and then go buy some lottery tickets. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
(Image: “Leif Eriksson Discovers America,” Hans Dahl (1849–1937). Public domain.)
[Published originally on RatBlurt™, January 14, 2022.]
