Today I met a new Twitter friend. He's from Texas but now lives in Chicago. When I teased him about how he ended up in Chicago, he said "bad luck." That phrase stayed with me all day.
Bad luck. He meant it as a joke, of course. From his biography, messages, and vast number of follower, I'd say this gentleman has led a pretty exciting life. But, how often do we hear it said it utter seriousness. How often do you fall back on it as an excuse when something negative happens to you in your daily life?
Far too often, I think we, as humans, try to escape the reality that our own actions can defeat our purposes and our goals are sometimes sabotaged by distorted thinking. It's a lot easier to blame the weather for us snapping at the grocery clerk who was a little slow today, or something someone said that diverted us from completing that task we meant to complete. Or, maybe it was just bad luck that the lights were all wrong, thus keeping us from picking the clothes up from the cleaners. You know: the clothes that your husband really needed for tomorrow's big meeting--the ones you could have picked up yesterday, but decided it would wait another day to do.
I thought a lot about luck today, and decided I don't believe in luck. I believe in God, miracles, choices, decisions, and consequences. And I really can't think of anything that doesn't fall into one of those categories. Can you?
