My mother often said to me that I was lucky. She pointed to my lovely wife, or six healthy children, our beautiful home and our success in business as things that proved just how lucky I am.
In the last few years of her life, I challenged her once in a while by saying I considered myself more “fortunate” than lucky. I was fortunate to be born in a free country. I was fortunate to have had loving and supportive parents. I was fortunate to get a good education and experience good health.
For me, lucky just doesn’t cover it. The distinction between lucky and fortunate may not be huge, but I think it’s worthy.
There’s a certain amount of luck—both good and bad—that comes to everyone. There’s some chance in everything we do—and don’t do. But I also believe that good fortune favors the fertile, open and expectant mind. At some level we create our lives and what we bring into it—at least most of it.
I’m exceptionally grateful for the many wonderful things I have in my life. And I believe that if we learn to appreciate more of what we already have, we’ll find ourselves having even more to appreciate. It’s certainly been true in my life.
But I still prefer the word fortunate rather than lucky. Lucky sounds like you have no part in it. It’s the luck of the draw, the turn of a card or the random stop of the wheel on a slot machine. Fortunate—at least for me—feels more appreciative as well as more participatory.
I encourage you to practice gratefulness. And I wish for you to create good fortune.
Best Life Strategy: The more you appreciate what you already have, the more you’ll have to appreciate.
This article was originally published on SuccessNet.org in 2013.
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