There are days that the axiom rings true: “If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” In the past month, I have had the lion’s share of things go wrong – unexpected dental problems, “check engine” lights flashing on my Toyota dashboard, family conflicts, well meaning but insensitive comments from friends about my financially unsuccessful life and the biggest cockroach in North Carolina deciding to set up camp in my Art-Deco styled living room. If there was any good news to be had, it certainly wasn’t headed my way. When I turned on a country western station and heard a song entitled “All I Really Need Is A Little Good News” by someone named Shaboozey, I felt that I had met my soulmate in musical cyberspace.

I’ve spent a lot of time this year ruminating on the proposition that maybe I am just not a lucky person since I seldom seem to be the recipient of good news. When I recently scoured the psychological literature about lucky and unlucky people, I came upon a lifechanging article which set my emotional equilibrium to rights. The writer boldly said, you make your own good luck or good news. She said that the funny thing about pain and misery is that they are terribly addictive, a sentiment I could relate to because I was constantly mired in thoughts of my victimhood and how I didn’t deserve good things because I simply wasn’t good enough anyway.

According to that author whose name I have lost in the annals of too-much-memory overload, lucky people actually generate their good fortune because of four essential principles.

1. Noticing and creating chance opportunities. In my case, I had the pre-existing attitude that “this wouldn’t work out for me anyway.” When I was offered a job as a magazine editor, I turned it down, figuring that I wouldn’t be able to deal with the deluge of assignments that I was assured I would be getting. I banked on being a failure, made a quick exit and licked my own psychological wounds. I missed the chance and, foreseeably, the regrets poured in hours later.
2. Listening to your intuition. Feeling that I was terminally unlucky, I finally realized, was directly linked to my lack of self-confidence. The intuition was often there, but the follow through didn’t happen. When an acquaintance mentioned to me that the vintage jewelry I was wearing was really exquisite, she followed that thought with “you really should open up an online store and sell this stuff.” I had had that same intuition before but figured there probably wasn’t a market for my heirlooms, so why bother trying to set up a website to display it? I wasn’t listening to my intuition and kicked it to the curb.
3. Creating self-fulfilling prophecies anchored in positive expectations. Being of the “woe is me” school, I didn’t have any positive expectations anyway. A friend emailed me a quote from Seneca, a philosopher in antiquity, which averred “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” The problem was, I couldn’t get myself to the preparation stage because I didn’t believe I had the innate ability to make a go of things – even if an opportunity presented itself. It felt ultimately better to wallow in despair and the voices of “I told you so, you’re just unlucky by nature.” By now, I could see the writing on the wall.
4. Adopting a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good. I didn’t have that attitude – but a renowned psychotherapist named Viktor Frankl, who survived the concentration camps of The Holocaust in World War II, did. In his famous book, “Man’s Search For Meaning” he argues: “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing – your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” Choosing to do nothing, while not a happy idea, required no energy and I was good with that.

When I came upon Ernest Hemingway’s quote “you make your own luck,” I finally resolved that I would do just that. I began to visualize good things happening and doing good things, too – being of service to others, doing community service, cleaning up a park and sending money to animal rescue operations. The positive mindset eventually set in motion a stream of fortuitous events – several stories which were published in various venues, a great roommate who joined our home and a juicy job offer I could not turn down.

The Dalai Lama remarked: “Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” Ironically, all the bad luck I had had turned my life around. The former geography of despair is now one filled with hope.