A Stoic Perspective

As we move into the dialogues for Empathy Week and beyond, the topic of self-transformation will come up. The Stoics provided wonderful resources for self-transformation. We might consider ideas from Ryan Holiday’s excellent book The Daily Stoic from time to time. Here is the entry for today, May 24.

From The Daily Stoic for May 24 (authors Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, featuring new translations of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius)

Making Your Own Good Fortune

“You say, good fortune used to meet you at every corner. But the fortunate person is the one who gives themselves a good fortune. And good fortunes are a well-tuned soul, good impulses and good actions.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.36

What is the more productive notion of good luck? One that is defined by totally random factors outside your control, or a matter of probability that can be increased – though not guaranteed – by the right decisions and the right preparation? Obviously, the latter. This is why successful yet mysteriously “lucky” people seem to gravitate toward it.

According to the wonderful site Quote Investigator, versions of this idea date back at least to the sixteenth century in the proverb “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” In the 1920s, Coleman Cox put a modern spin on it by saying, “I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.” (That saying has been incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, who said nothing of the kind.) Today, we say, “Luck is where hard work meets opportunity.” Or is it typically flipped?

Today, you can hope that good fortune and good luck magically come your way. Or you can prepare yourself to get lucky by focusing on doing the right thing at the right time – and, ironically, render luck mostly unnecessary in the process.