Luck Finds Those In Motion

So....let's get moving

“The mystery of life is not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.” Frank Herbert, Dune

The internet has brought the world to our fingertips and AI is helping us filter and use it. I sometimes mistake watching the world go by with being a part of it. Online interactions lack a richness of the real world, like a CD - samples of reality that attempt to recreate the whole but somehow miss it.

See, I’ve been laid up, “healing,” for five weeks now. My shoulder bones are indeed knitting and reconstructing, though quite mangled compared to the original, evolutionarily-refined masterpiece. But the rest of me is deteriorating, physically at least. Emotionally it’s a roller-coaster where I do find joy and motivation and determination, but easily slide into depression, anxiety, and hermitry.

I haven’t left the house much. I have a cave of a room - I block out the light cause it warms up the room too much - where I work and eat and do all the things from a horizontal position. As a true extrovert this kills me. As an OCD engineer and technophile this has opened up a new set of abilities. I’m becoming more introverted by the day.

Not only do I miss the world, but my work feels less effective, somehow. Part of my role is evangelism, to be sure. I’m not talking to people. For a few weeks the pain was too distracting to hold a conversation. But now I feel the calling of the morning coffee meeting or a walk-and-talk. I have never initiated a walk-and-talk with someone, but think I might.

I’m reminded of Richard Wiseman’s ‘Luck Factor’ research. His main conclusion: “lucky” people are not simply blessed by fate; they tend to create, notice, and act on more chance opportunities. He also found that lucky people are generally more open, relaxed, socially connected, and resilient when things go badly. Luck can be quantified and it happens to people in motion.

I can get a lot of real work done in my cave, but I won’t find much luck. The Puzzle marches forward, every day we are placing pieces whether we realize it or not. Some are intentional. Some are sloppy. Some are forced. Some are handed to us by other people. The more we move through life with presence and intention, the more surface area our Puzzle has. More tabs. More edges. More connection points. That’s where luck finds us.

Those connection points might get a new piece down the line by someone we haven’t seen in years at that event we really wanted to skip. We might be reminded of it while in conversation days later, “out of nowhere.” That friend we’ve been meaning to call might bring it up. Chance opportunities to make our Puzzle richer, fuller, and luckier.

I hope to see you soon out in the real world, let’s find luck together.