My Luck

I have never been known as someone who has good luck and hence, I have come to a point where I believe that luck is something you create chances for through initiative, innovative and creativity. In fact, I still think so. As an engineer who studies mathematics to a point where everything is defined by numbers, chances of luck is mathematical to me too.

Over the past few weeks, my luck has been bursting out of everywhere like an uncontrolled chain bomb. Lucks pops up here and there when I least expected it. I thought, maybe it's because of the weather where everyone is in such a good mood. But after a series of events last week, I began to think other wise.

Gerhard, an Austrian guy I met in the student union was considered as one of my crazy luck. We met on and off on the street, and I find myself helping him out one day with the skill of catching a cab. Yes, you do need to actually have certain techniques to catch a cab in the snap of a finger. He is from another country and hence doesn't know how stupid the cab service is in Manchester. I told him it's better to go out on to the main street waving his hand than to wait for a call cab. The next thing I know, I was invited to one of his parties and into his circle of friends. (Opportunity created)

Juan Carlos, is a Manchester Radio Producer of All FM I met in the hostel. He claimed that I had a good personality and the next thing I know is, I was on air, live broadcast across Manchester. It was a one of a kind experience. (Opportunity created)

Saturday, the day my notebook was stolen was when I left the house for only a mere fifteen minutes. All the doors were locked in the house, even the laptop had a laptop locked but it still happened. So, I would say this is unfortunately a very bad luck.

My final year individual project is one of the most important course modules that must be completed. I was very depressed because I couldn't manage to find more information regarding my proposed project title and desperately needed some senior advice. I went to lunch in a nearby fast food restaurant two hours before my project meeting. I wanted to sit down and gather my thoughts properly. It was my luck that I met a senior engineering student who is actually specializing in my project area. Ayan, a MSc engineering student chatted me up and before I know it, I have got just what I want: information, explanation, and advice from this dude. I did not just made another friend, but I've finally understand my task in my project. This is pure luck because you don't get such opportunity like that.. (Good luck)

Another one of my super bizarre incident has to do with the Shell Career presentation. It was my career advisor who brought to my attention to the talk and I wasn't very interested. However, he urged me to go and take it as an experience and as an opportunity to gather ideas in job hunting. And so I did.

I arrived late for approximately 3 minutes. The moment I stepped in, the talk has already begun but instead of the Shell employees giving the talk, it was the anti-shell-environmentalist talking. He was talking about not working for Shell for environmental reasons. I thought "ah". Then there's the regular lucky draw for an Ipod Nano this year. We were told to hand in our details in a card for it. I thought, "shit, another one of these scams to get our email addresses" but I did it anyway.

So, presentation over, and everyone moved to the next room for refreshments. I was the only one sat down packing all my stuff and preparing to leave when this gorgeous Shell human resource manager came to talk to me. We had a good chat about my opportunity to work with them, it was good considering that she is so hot. To be honest, deep down inside me I told myself that I would not want to work for such a company for several reasons such as "not sexy enough", "not smart enough" in the self part. I had some food and drinks, and then I left the building picking up a free t-shirt, an umbrella and handed in my card with my details. On my way out, I said out loud to the open air "I will not work for Shell".

Two days later, one of my course mates approached me and told me that I missed my opportunity for the Ipod Nano simply because I left early. Shell announced my name moments after I left as the sole winner of the night's Ipod Nano. Now, this is pure good and bad luck. Good because I never win a one in a hundred lucky draw before, and bad because I wasn't there to claim it. How much that suck? (Pure Luck)

Of course, the measurement of luck has to have a balance. Nobody can have too much of good luck over a long period of time. At one point, there should be pay back in terms of bad luck. Just like the law of thermodynamics. Luck can be measure in terms of good luck (positive value) or bad luck (negative value). The higher amount of good luck you have, you have to compensate it with bad luck.

0 = Sum of all Good Lucks + Sum of all Bad Lucks,
where "Bad Luck" is a negative value.

Sum of all luck is equal to zero.

The above equation is a generalized calculation, since time isn't taken account into calculation. Without time, it means that bad things happens to you as much as good things do. Now, I'm sure many people will disagree with this. It's all a matter of individual perspective on the situation, which basically brings us back from fiction to reality, or rather science calculation to praticality. How much luck a person gets is dependant on how optimistic or pessimistic they are.

If you think you are unfortunate, you will constantly meet misfortune.
If you feel happy-go-lucky, luck will stick to you wherever you go.