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.