Infinite Critique

When I started looking up things like “taking control of my own life”, “self-improvement”, “breaking bad habits” and other sorts of self-help topics, it was because I had already let myself go. I’d reached a point in my life where I was tired of trying things that don’t seem to work, and I let myself become lazy. I settled for mediocrity, because it didn’t seem worth it to try oh so very hard (yeah right) for what appeared to be little reward. In looking for self-help, I was looking for a miraculous cure-all. I was looking for the one solution to all my issues, something simple that perhaps I’d overlooked. Everyone else seemed to just be lucky or charmed. I seemed somewhat charmed why I was younger. What magical thing did I have back then? What magical thing did all these other people have? I was certain I’d find the answer in books & websites about how to succeed. I was searching & searching for a way to get through life with as little work as possible. (Rather like looking all over your living room for the remote when you could always just walk over to the TV and hit the button manually, isn’t it?)

It started in middle school, I think. I saw peers getting paid for the A’s on their report card when I only got praise for mine. I heard about people who got lucky with a great idea, a lottery win, or a chance meeting that led to a career in entertainment. These people seemed to get all they wanted for what looked like very little, if any, work. At the same time, I had been pampered my whole life. I was getting everything I wanted every Christmas and Birthday. I had a habit of spending $20 (of my mother’s money) a day EVERY day at the mall after school when I was 15 years old. If I wanted something, I was able to have it one way or another. I wasn’t spoiled in the sense that I didn’t appreciate all that was given to me, but I was spoiled in the sense that between my life & the lives of others I saw, I was taught the American Nightmare: Laziness yields results.

Many people nowadays seem to subscribe to this belief. It goes from the American Dream (the old adage of working your way up from nothing and getting all the money & power you want) to the American Nightmare (sitting on your butt & waiting for the cash car to come rolling in) when we decide to believe that winning is the only way to succeed, that luck is the only driving force in our lives. I call it the American Nightmare because that’s how it feels when you realize that the world doesn’t really work that way. The sinking feeling, the feeling of helplessness, the sense that you have no idea what you’re doing… it really is horrible. And I’m sure many of you readers can relate.

I was thrown out into the real world with no preparation because of how my life had gone. It wasn’t really that I was waiting for an easy button. I had only really ever SEEN easy buttons, so I didn’t even realize that real life required the amount of work, research, resourcefulness, and effort that it truly requires. Everything had been provided for me, or I’d seen other people given everything. The threshold of what I considered “hard work” was astoundingly low.

Success stories that you read about in celebrity biographies & memoirs usually hinged, at some point, on luck. There’s always a gamble taken, there’s always a knowing-the-right-person story, there’s always an “I was at the right place at the right time” tale in there somewhere. Of course we think that our success depends on luck. It DOES depend on luck.

Oh no, now she’s contradicting yourself, I hear you say. Stick with me, the loose ends will be tied in just a moment.

It is luck that makes it happen. But it is only work, skill, and effort that makes it at all possible. I’ll say that again:

Luck makes it happen, but work makes it possible.

Luck cannot help you if you do not make opportunities for yourself. Sure, you’re much more likely to get that job as an editor if you know someone at the publishing company. But there’s no way you’ll actually end up employed unless you have very strong command of the English language. Plus, you’ll never meet someone at the publishing company to begin with unless you network effectively.

Work is the method by which we increase our “luck”. Thomas Jefferson once said, “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” Roman writer Seneca the Elder similarly noted that “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” The skill is in being prepared, working to the point where we can both create opportunities, and more easily see them when they come up because we’re so immersed in the thought of what we want to do with our lives. Without work, luck is not only a moot point in regards to your progress, it’s utterly nonexistent.

The first step in taking control of your life is to acknowledge that you will never be lucky enough to succeed if you don’t first work towards success. Yes, ultimately it’ll be a lucky break that gets you to where you want to be, but if you stare at your goal and wait for it to come, it never will. You have to realize that you need to work for it to get it.

There’s a short song I like by Japanese singer/songwriter Ayumi Hamasaki that goes, “If you only look, you will never have it. If you only look, it will never be yours.” If you sit around and wait for your goal to come, and for your luck to increase, it will never happen. You will never succeed.

In order to take control of your life, you first must acknowlege that you need to.

Step two will come next week. Good luck, everyone!