Luck & Delightful Surprises

On my morning walk with the dog last week, I saw this stick on the ground:


To me, it looks like a wishbone. So naturally, I tried to make a wish and pull off one of the tines, and discovered after much concerted effort that it couldn't be done. It would have been easy to think of that as unlucky - I made a wish, which by superstitious definition now cannot come true because I did not manage to pull off the bigger (or "lucky") tine from my wishbone stick. But I chose to think of simply finding the wishbone stick as a positive occurrence in my day. It wasn't about the ultimate outcome (a wish coming true) but more about what level of importance I personally placed on the situation. For example, if I think I am "lucky," then I will manifest luck in my life by simply recognizing positive events, which I choose to call "delightful surprises". A delightful surprise is can be anything - saving $1.50 on bus fare when someone offers you a ride instead, or finding a full bottle of shampoo in your cabinet just when you thought you were out (and running late). Delightful surprises are everywhere, in forms big and small, and when you have a positive mindset they can be overwhelming in their abundance.

I used to think I was unlucky - I always caught the catfish when my brothers and sister were bringing up silvery salmon, and I never found money on the ground the way my younger bro is prone to do (even now). But in my adulthood, I've realized that when we were fishing as kids, I always had less patience than everyone else (choosing to read a book rather than jig the line), which is why I never brought up the big one. And I never find money on the ground because I always look up or around me instead of down. So there's no lack of luck in my life, only a lack of dedicated attention when it comes to searching for dirty dollars on the city streets. I choose to find delightful surprises in every day - they might not come in the form of a tasty fish or loose change, but they're out there, if I only I am diligent in looking for them.