Friday, August 22, 2008
Are you lucky, fortunate or blessed?
I have a friend who, when I talk to him about good things that could happen in life, always responds, “if I’m lucky.” I know this is just a catch phrase…one of those things that you say without even really thinking about it but I think that it says something about his belief system. So that got me to thinking about my beliefs when it comes to being lucky.
Luck is defined by Miriam-Webster as “producing or resulting in good by chance.” So to believe in luck is to believe that things—good or bad—happen by chance…that there is no order, rhyme or reason to the events that take place in your life. Essentially you are at the mercy of a nothingness in which, on any given day, something could go right or something could go wrong. If something goes right you’re lucky. I can definitely say I don’t believe in luck. I believe that there is a reason for everything that happens. Sometimes it’s not meant for us to know the reason and so we call it random because we’ll never understand it. But there was a reason. I’ll talk below about why it’s important to me to acknowledge that.
The word fortunate (again, definition supplied by the good folks at Miriam-Webster) is defined as “bringing some good thing not foreseen as certain.” So to believe in being fortunate one could believe in a random order or one could believe in pre-destination (or any of the schools of thought in between). To be fortunate means to recognize something good that you didn’t think you were getting. I don’t know about being fortunate. Seems awfully one sided to me. To say someone has been fortunate is to recognize only the things in one’s life that are perceived as good. It does not take into account things that you may not immediately (or ever) perceive as good that ultimately work for your greater good. But the line on being fortunate is fuzzy—I can’t tell who might belong to this “club.”
To be blessed is defined as “bringing pleasure, contentment, or good fortune.” Hmmmm…that one sounds a little shaky too. But I’d like to call your attention to the third word of that definition: contentment. It refers to the state of being content, which is defined as “feeling or showing satisfaction with one's possessions, status, or situation.” Now first I have to say that I am a bit prejudiced because I absolutely believe in being blessed. What I like about the meaning of the word blessed is that it is encompassing of the many ways we can come upon a bless-ing. A blessing is not always wrapped up in a pretty box. It doesn’t always look like something good. This is where the “everything happens for a reason” mindset comes in. If we look at every situation we are in and we accept that for some reason this has happened to us, to me that is comforting. To know that I am not the subject of some random order of events and that everything that happens to me has a purpose.
I’ll give you an example. This past spring I was in a car accident. A guy rear-ended me on the highway sending me careening into a car in front of me. Destroyed my beloved mini-van (sigh…I loved that van) and gave me a nasty case of whip lash and an injured shoulder. For some reason that happened to me. I didn’t know why and, yes, I was very stressed out about it.
Every year I worry and I wonder about how I will pay my children’s school tuition. I felt called (we’ll talk about feeling called later) to take them out of the failing public school system and put them into parochial school. Each year has been a struggle to keep up with tuition but none more than this year. Utility rates have gone up, my mortgage interest rate is way up. It seems I’m swimming in debt and I barely spend any money. It took me until the end of July to pay off last year’s tuition. I didn’t know how I was going to do it this year. I did not withdraw them from school though. Something would come through, I just knew it would.
Following my accident I retained a lawyer because the insurance company of the guy who hit me was giving me the major run around. I needed medical care for my neck and shoulders and I was just confused. My lawyer handled all the logistics of getting me into physical therapy and getting the money to replace my car. After my therapy was over I didn’t hear from him for a long time. Just this last week he called and told me the insurance company offered me a settlement of a couple thousand dollars for my accident. Just in time to pay the tuition for my girl’s school.
That could be random, I suppose, if you believe in randomness. I believe in blessings. So you might say that I was blessed to be in that accident. It was a scary, horrible experience that I don’t wish to repeat but it had a purpose in my life. It kept me going on the path that I feel my higher power wants me to go. Staying on that path creates in me a sense of contentment. See how that works?
So next time you go to use the phrase “lucky” think about that. Are you lucky, fortunate, or blessed? More importantly, do you know how to tell the difference?
Luck is defined by Miriam-Webster as “producing or resulting in good by chance.” So to believe in luck is to believe that things—good or bad—happen by chance…that there is no order, rhyme or reason to the events that take place in your life. Essentially you are at the mercy of a nothingness in which, on any given day, something could go right or something could go wrong. If something goes right you’re lucky. I can definitely say I don’t believe in luck. I believe that there is a reason for everything that happens. Sometimes it’s not meant for us to know the reason and so we call it random because we’ll never understand it. But there was a reason. I’ll talk below about why it’s important to me to acknowledge that.
The word fortunate (again, definition supplied by the good folks at Miriam-Webster) is defined as “bringing some good thing not foreseen as certain.” So to believe in being fortunate one could believe in a random order or one could believe in pre-destination (or any of the schools of thought in between). To be fortunate means to recognize something good that you didn’t think you were getting. I don’t know about being fortunate. Seems awfully one sided to me. To say someone has been fortunate is to recognize only the things in one’s life that are perceived as good. It does not take into account things that you may not immediately (or ever) perceive as good that ultimately work for your greater good. But the line on being fortunate is fuzzy—I can’t tell who might belong to this “club.”
To be blessed is defined as “bringing pleasure, contentment, or good fortune.” Hmmmm…that one sounds a little shaky too. But I’d like to call your attention to the third word of that definition: contentment. It refers to the state of being content, which is defined as “feeling or showing satisfaction with one's possessions, status, or situation.” Now first I have to say that I am a bit prejudiced because I absolutely believe in being blessed. What I like about the meaning of the word blessed is that it is encompassing of the many ways we can come upon a bless-ing. A blessing is not always wrapped up in a pretty box. It doesn’t always look like something good. This is where the “everything happens for a reason” mindset comes in. If we look at every situation we are in and we accept that for some reason this has happened to us, to me that is comforting. To know that I am not the subject of some random order of events and that everything that happens to me has a purpose.
I’ll give you an example. This past spring I was in a car accident. A guy rear-ended me on the highway sending me careening into a car in front of me. Destroyed my beloved mini-van (sigh…I loved that van) and gave me a nasty case of whip lash and an injured shoulder. For some reason that happened to me. I didn’t know why and, yes, I was very stressed out about it.
Every year I worry and I wonder about how I will pay my children’s school tuition. I felt called (we’ll talk about feeling called later) to take them out of the failing public school system and put them into parochial school. Each year has been a struggle to keep up with tuition but none more than this year. Utility rates have gone up, my mortgage interest rate is way up. It seems I’m swimming in debt and I barely spend any money. It took me until the end of July to pay off last year’s tuition. I didn’t know how I was going to do it this year. I did not withdraw them from school though. Something would come through, I just knew it would.
Following my accident I retained a lawyer because the insurance company of the guy who hit me was giving me the major run around. I needed medical care for my neck and shoulders and I was just confused. My lawyer handled all the logistics of getting me into physical therapy and getting the money to replace my car. After my therapy was over I didn’t hear from him for a long time. Just this last week he called and told me the insurance company offered me a settlement of a couple thousand dollars for my accident. Just in time to pay the tuition for my girl’s school.
That could be random, I suppose, if you believe in randomness. I believe in blessings. So you might say that I was blessed to be in that accident. It was a scary, horrible experience that I don’t wish to repeat but it had a purpose in my life. It kept me going on the path that I feel my higher power wants me to go. Staying on that path creates in me a sense of contentment. See how that works?
So next time you go to use the phrase “lucky” think about that. Are you lucky, fortunate, or blessed? More importantly, do you know how to tell the difference?
# posted by Bariatric Foodie @ 1:42 PM 
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