Luck by design
Not sure, but I remotely remember having read somewhere that ‘Luck is democratic’. It comes to everyone during one’s lifetime, at some or the other point of time, exceptions apart.
Sometime back I ran a poll amongst selected group of friends and well wishers, asking them, if Luck would have been available on tap, or like money in an ATM, what phase of life they would have thought of drawing on that reserve trump card.
The answers varied with the age-group of respondents. The younger lot, like fast food, wanted it all at once in 20-30 years age bracket, some respondents putting emphasis on education, wanted most of it during their schooling days 5-15 yrs, some others wanted at their birth time so that they begin their life with a silver spoon in their mouth. There were yet others, mostly senior citizens, who wanted better part of Good Luck during their sun-set years, as that is the time when the spouses needing to take care of each other and support themselves, need that slice of luck.
I also had interaction with some of respondents belonging to different age brackets, and with my own gut feeling too, I am of the view that........
Life is highly unpredictable and vastly complicated, and there are too many ever changing variables, minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year, that we can not put in any form of mathematical equation to show case a template for a so called happy, satisfactory and successful life at any point of time we all yearn for. Any thing missing or delayed, and with most of us bankrupt on patience and perseverance levels, one gets tempted to draw a trump card from the vault of Luck at the slightest provocation. Left to us, most of us would have drawn 100% on Luck reserves before we would have turned 40.
When I am talking about Luck here, what it means is all those occasions when we invoke divine intervention to get our desired results, (other than for material things of life) or to get yourself bailed out in case of any problem.
What I have observed from life of my nears and dears is that most of the Sukh (Happiness) and Dukh (Troubles) we experience in our life emanates from 4 major sources -
1. Birth time - your DNA and the family you are born into
2. Marriage time - the kind of spouse (especially wife) you get in your life.... for it lays the foundation of your economic security, no matter how much you earn, and it has a major role in bringing and rearing up your children.
3. Job/Profession/Business - The place of work is the crucible where you learn most of your skills and polish your personality, setting up a new pedestal, year after year for you, as to how the life needs to be lead. Eventually it gives you name, fame and wealth; the later becoming the backbone of your life in sun-set years.
4. The spiritual learning you have on the way, at every interaction of difficulty and inconvenience you face, and the way you surmount those curbs, sets up something like a voltage stabilizer in your personality, which helps you steer your ship afloat under all circumstances, and helps keep the mind steady no matter what be the life's storms and challenges.
Coming to conclusions on the survey, most of the people in their feedback opined that while we always need luck at various stages of life; the major luck is needed at the time of marriage - the kind of spouse (wife especially) one gets, but if divine grace has to be exercised in choosing when do you want major portion of good luck, it is …………post retirement. Why so?
Because that is the time by which your children got married and are settled and are on their own, and husband-wife need each other never like that before. That’s the time, in bringing up the family, and in a bid to be successful at the job/profession/business front, and the grind you have gone through and huge sacrifices made by you, you had already run full cycle of depreciation and health of both husband and wife (especially anxiety she carries for security of her family) becomes most fragile, and you really need divine grace to pass through the last phase of your life healthy and peaceful. That is the time when you can not handle stress and anxiety, mostly from your children’s family/siblings side too, as it impacts your health severally.
Respondents were also of the view that we need comparatively lesser luck at the initial stages of our life, be that during school/college days or be that at the job/profession/business front, as we all necessarily need to pass through struggles in our life to make us strong, competent and resilient.
Life's struggles are a part and parcel of our life, as it build up mind and muscle, strength and stamina, and bouts of tears and joy we experience in our failure and success, helps secretion of emotions of compassion and gratitude, which makes us all a good human being. Struggles are like our Life's gyms, and we should not expect any mercy, benevolence from Divine during such period of struggle, and stay away from invoking good luck.
In fact, struggles, disappointment, failure and rejection are the other names of Good Luck.
While the quality of life we get to live in our life is very very important, but then let us also remember that last taste prevails. Therefore, EXIT is also equally important, and we all need to guard and secure life leading to our final exit. To be saved of the illness and pains at your exit time, and consequently save pains that your ill health may cause to your near and dears is the biggest slice of Luck one should pray for. No matter whatever be the level of your name, fame, wealth and popularity you earned in your life time, to be saved of serious illness and pains at the fag end of your life is life time bonus we should pray for to merciful God.
A honourable Exit is one wish card we all should hold in bargain for all the glory we enjoy during our lifetime.
But the biggest tragedy of life is we never get to know what is our Exit time. The life changes gears very swiftly, and happy times turn into tragic times in no time, and vice versa too.
Therefore, reserve large chunk of Good Luck for later part of your life. Deal with life with your intellect and competence and use God's grace sparingly, and only for those situations where HIS intervention may save you.
Majority vote, if Luck is available on demand, was
Birth time - 10%
Marriage time - 30%
Job time - 20%
Post retirement - 40%
It reminds me of a Hindi Bollywood song,
रोते हुए आते है सब, हँसता हुआ जो जाएगा, वह मुक़द्दर का सिकंदर कहलायेगा…..
🙏🙏🙏