[pernicus53]

Everyone is discussing luck in terms of something happening to you during your life. What about the "luck" of the larger circumstances of one's life? Say two people go into a bar to pick up the "10" and one looks "better" than the other. He wasn't, then, "lucky" to have picked her up, but couldn't we say he's "lucky" to have been born that way? His genes determined this, but he's lucky to have those genes, right? But people don't like this line of thought, quite understandably, because it just sounds like sour grapes on the part of whomever didn't get the "10." But if you're "lucky" to just happen to pick up some chick for no apparent reason, you're really "lucky" to have been born in a way that allows you to do it all the time (and to not seem "lucky.") That is something that happens to you that you can't control, even if it "happens" before you were born. So, people in first-world countries are "lucky" to have been born three and not in third-world countries (except for to people who don't value modern technology/wealth). Everything's relative, and someone who, for example, pities himself for running bad at poker could be reminded, well, you were born with your limbs, etc. Apparently the guy who inspired the character Tony Knish in Rounders said to someone who was complaining about a bad beat "that wasn't a bad beat. Hiroshima was a bad beat." Anyway, my point is not that people shouldn't complain about bad luck. But I've always thought of luck in terms of a person's overall life, because it seems to me everything else flows from there. I've always felt like, why does it matter if I get "lucky" and pick up some hotty at a bar: isn't the bigger issue that I'd NEED luck? That may seem like defeatist thinking, yet knowing one's limitations can be quite useful--you can then, I suppose, at least start working on your skills.