Luck.

One of my friends from college gave me a little charm as a Christmas present before we left for break, and told me "This is the Chinese character for lucky, so that means that this year (referring to the upcoming year), you will be lucky!" It got me thinking about what it means to be lucky and the whole concept of luck in general.

What does it really mean to be lucky? I guess one definition of the word might be "someone who has something good, or many good things, happen to them." For example, someone who wins the lottery would be seen as lucky by many people. Someone who does really well on a test they barely studied for, or someone who gets the lead role in a very competitive audition for a play may also be considered lucky. Even if you're walking down the street and find five dollars on the ground, you're probably likely to consider yourself lucky. But is that the entire concept of what luck is? Having something good happen to you that you either really want but aren't sure you'll get, or that's something completely unexpected?

It's not that I don't think that's enough. Of course I'd be ecstatic if I found five dollars on the floor, or if I won the lottery, or had something awesome like that happen to me. However, I don't think luck is only based on one-time good things that happen to you, but on good things that become and remain a part of your life. My friends are the most important thing in my life, and I consider myself so lucky to know them all and have them as a part of my life, to spend time with and enjoy their company, and to talk about all kinds of things with them, whether it's laughing about something random and cracked out, sharing common interests and obsessions, or discussing our opinions on certain issues and ideas. Just the fact that I have these amazing friends in my life makes me feel that I am lucky.

Of course, there are times in my life when I don't feel lucky, like when I trip and fall or break something, or when I lose things that are important to me (like my ipod a few weeks ago), or when I don't meet the standards I set for myself. But then I think about the things in my life that I do have, like my amazing friends, the fact that I was able to get a new ipod, the fact that I've been able to do a pretty decent job of balancing my time in college between doing work and hanging out, and other things...and I realize that, despite the fact that I might not fit the conventional definition of lucky, I still have so many great things in my life, and that is enough to make me happy and to feel lucky. I guess the catagory of being lucky is different for everyone.

Ambition.

Ambition is a quality that, from what I've experienced, has always been seen as something that's both good and bad. In one of my favorite works of literature, Macbeth, ambition is portrayed negatively; Lady Macbeth was overly ambitious and wanted to gain more power, which she obtained by having her husband kill the king of Scotland, but she ended up being overcome by guilt and is constantly making hand-washing motions as she sleepwalks, as if attempting to wash away the actions that she knows she was responsible for.

However, I've always considered ambition to be mostly a positive quality. I remember taking an online quiz (that was probably something like "What [insert food/drink item here] are you?") and it told me "At your best, you're ambitious," and I thought about how true that is. When I really want something, I'll work hard and do whatever I can in order to get it or make it happen. For example, in junior year I really wanted to do well in AP biology, because I had an amazing teacher who really inspired me and made the class interesting. I worked really hard in that class; I spent a lot of time doing the homework and studying, and it paid off because not only did I get a 5 on the AP test (making me the first one in my entire school to get a 5) but I got the award in the class as well. I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging or think I'm some sort of amazing genius; I'm not. The point is that I didn't get to where I did through being smart, but because of hard work and effort. When I'm ambitious and I'm working hard and I'm motivated about something, not only do I usually end up gaining something from it, but it makes me feel happy because I know that all the work I put into whatever I did paid off.

I know, however, that ambition can have negative consequences if taken to extremes. When people are so wrapped up in achieving their goals that they end up hurting other people along the way, then that's taking ambition a bit too far. I mean, not that anyone should completely sacrifice their goals just so they won't make anyone feel bad...but if they're deliberately doing something negative just for their own positive benefit, then in my opinion, that kind of cancels out any rewards or positive feelings that come with achieving something that you've worked hard for.

I guess ambition is both a strength and a weakness...depending on the situation and the person, it can be either. Although I know many times I can be lazy and unmotivated to do things, I know that when I am ambitious, it usually ends up yielding positive results. (I almost wrote "yielding products," like in chemistry. SO glad that class is over, haha.)

Love.

"Is it better to have loved and lost or never to have loved at all?"

It's one of those age old questions, like "Which came first; the chicken or the egg?" or "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Unlike those two questions, though, this one's not really a question that could possibly be resolved with a definite answer, since it really depends on the individual and their views on life/experiences, rather than the other two which are argued pretty much entirely based on logical answers (or attempts to be logical, anyways).

When I was in eighth grade, I really believed that life would be better if there were no emotions at all. Based on some of the negative experiences that I'd gone through, I thought it would be better if I'd never have to feel anything at all, rather than have to experience anything similar to how I felt in past situations. At that point, I thought that even if having no emotions meant that I would never be able to be happy or cheerful again, it'd be worth it not to feel sadness and pain anymore. So, in eighth grade if someone had asked me if it's better to have loved and lost or never to have loved at all, I'd definitely say never to love at all, because I wouldn't have had to feel the pain of losing someone you care about so much.

I understand why I thought that way at the time...but looking back on it now, I don't agree anymore. The idea of living without emotions doesn't appeal to me at all now; in fact, it scares me a little. I watched an episode of House this season where a man and his daughter had anhedonia, which is an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events, and it was scary. I know it might have been due to the way it was portrayed in the show, but still. The thought of being so robotic, so unresponsive to everything around you, unable to laugh hysterically with a friend about something absolutely ridiculous or to smile because you got a Christmas card in the mail from your friend or to feel good about doing something nice for someone else...I don't know. It just seems to me that everything would be so dull and boring and the worst part of it all is that if I didn't have emotions, I wouldn't even KNOW how bad it would be, because I wouldn't care about anything.

So, now if anyone was to ask me, "Is it better to have loved and lost or never to have loved at all?" I would definitely say that it's better to have loved and lost. I know it's not an easy experience to go through...to have someone in your life who you care about so fucking much, who means everything to you, and then to have something happen and they're not a part of your life anymore. It's awful. It's one of the worst things that a person could ever go through, in my opinion. However, I'd go through the pain if it meant I got to experience what it's like to truly love someone, rather than go through life never knowing what it's like to love and be loved.

Which brings me to my second question: “What’s love like?”

I was reading a story yesterday and it had some really good quotes that I thought could be used to describe love.

“It’s like… having warmth inside you. That nothing can ever take away. That you carry around in your heart, and that you would do anything for. Kill for, fight for, die for. It’s intensely beautiful and it’s always full of pain, mingled, because you bleed it. But it’s like… bullets and flowers and sunshine in winter.” This one means a lot to me because it shows how love can be simultaneously the greatest thing and the most painful thing in your life, but no matter how much it may hurt, the happiness that it brings is worth it all.

"The love I have inside me is like a supernova, a star inside a cage, alive and burning until I think I’ll explode." I liked this one because it shows how intense love can be. How you can care for someone so much, so strongly that sometimes you don't know how you can feel all these emotions and feelings for someone. It's so exhilarating, and you get this rush of happiness and it's like...you love this person so much and so deeply that you don't know how you can contain it all within yourself. Idk. I can't really explain it very well...but I understand it, haha.

“You… made me feel like I was… more than I am.” I feel like this one sounds a bit cliche...but I love it regardless. To find someone who makes you see yourself in new and different ways that you wouldn't have if that other person hadn't been there. Someone who makes you do more, see more, feel more, be more than what you thought you could. Someone who challenges you to go beyond your limits but supports you every step of the way.

And, my favorite: "It's impossible to describe: just the knowing that somebody is there who you've wanted there all your life." This one pretty much sums up how I feel about love: it's really not something you can put into words. It's just that when you find someone who just means so much to you, and they're pretty much everything you've ever wanted in a person, and they make your life so amazing just by being in it...then that's love right there.

Yeah, so I kind of feel like a sappy romantic writing this post...which contrasts with the insensitive, cold-hearted cynic I've always considered myself, haha. I just think that finding someone you really love who loves you just as much in return is one of the greatest things that could happen to anyone.