Don't Blame The Stars - Blame Yourself
6 Principles that can change your luck and write your own destiny
Being born as an Indonesian in a traditional Javanese family, my childhood was full of traditions and rituals. Many of these rituals had to do with ‘taking away bad luck’ and ‘bringing more good fortune’ to the person.
Some of these practices involved the use of certain objects, such as talismans or charms, while others were performed during specific occasions or events.
For example, I am the oldest of three siblings, I have a sister and a brother, in that sequence. This sequence of siblings: boy - girl - boy, is one of many special combinations in our tradition and for this, my parents had to hold a special ritual, because if not it was believed that something bad could happen to any of us.
I give you another example, I was born on Friday and a particular Javanese day called ‘Legi’ (which means Sweet). You can guess, that every time this combination of days occurs (every couple of months), I need to prepare some ritual, usually involved in preparing plates of 2-colour rice puddings. Again this needs to be done to ward off evil and to keep the fortune close.
Bad luck vs fortune superstitions is a staple, not only in Asian culture but also everywhere, including in Western first-world countries.
So is it possible to change our luck without resorting to a visit to some old guy who looks like a homeless, or taking a bath with water that comes from 7 sources infused with 7 types of flowers, or carrying some lower torso of some small mammal everywhere you go?
Before I get to that, I have to acknowledge something. I do recognize and admit that there are things or events that happened (or could happen) in the world that are beyond our control; natural disasters, global economic crises, and the pandemic are some examples that I could think of.
These are things that we can’t avoid, and if you happened to be one of the victims, often you would be considered ‘unlucky’. Myself, I prefer to see it as fate.
But as far as luck is concerned, we have the power to change it, we can ‘write our own destiny’.
I did it, and you can do it too!
1. “Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat” - Fortune favours the brave!
People often say to me, “Wow dude you are so lucky, you have a great job, a big house and a nice family!”.
Well, luck has got nothing to do with them!
The job, the roof over my head, and the family I have didn’t just suddenly one day appear in front of me. They were the fruit of choices and decisions I made, and the hard work that followed after that.
From an early age, I already decided that I would work in the field of IT.
From then on, everything I did - every decision I made was dedicated to pursue this dream.
This included the decision to study abroad on the other side of the globe. That meant a new country, language and customs, and I was alone without the support of my family close by.
After graduation, I decided not to go home and to find a job in the country where I studied. I did find the job I dreamt of and never looked back since.
Life is a series of choices, it’s the action we take on those decisions that will attract fortune to our favour. But you have to act on it.
How can you get ‘lucky’ with a girl across the pub if you don’t get up, walk to her and introduce yourself?
People tell you that you have a talent (in anything), but you never do anything about I. Not only that you would never know how good you are, but you would’ve also wasted that talent!
And then when someone wins some talent competition, people often say how lucky the person was.
You need to do something to move the probability in your favour.
You need to play if you want to win!
Choose and Act!
2. Change your universe
7 years ago, my wife and I decided to uproot our family and move to her home country where her family lived.
It was a very hard decision but with our second child coming, we felt that close proximity to the extended family was needed, for support more than anything else.
Another deciding factor was that we couldn’t see ourselves raising a family where we were before. With property prices ridiculously high, there was no chance we could get onto the property ladder any time soon, and time was the thing we didn’t have.
We were running out of luck 🙂 So we decided to change it by finding a new universe to ‘place our bet’ where the stakes were not too high.
By the third year of living in the new place, we bought our new family house. We chose not to buy an apartment (cheaper) and decided to go with a house with a garden (more expensive).
This gamble paid off during the Pandemic when the lockdown started. Had we chosen to buy an apartment we would have gone insane, locked inside the 4-wall without a chance to go outside!
Were we lucky? No, we made the choice and acted on it
Often we are too comfortable where we are and despite all the downsides, and negativity that impacted our lives by being stagnant in that place, we refuse to move.
It could be:
That thankless job.
That toxic relationship.
That miserable place.
Many times ‘moving’ is the only way to improve the ‘odds’, the only thing left is to be brave and to do it.
Don’t let it go on until a major disaster strikes. Roll the dice, take the chance, and move on!
3. Trust your gut instinct
A long time ago I had a girlfriend. She was beautiful, clever and very successful in her career. It was everything that a man could hope for for a partner.
We started the relationship pretty well, we connected on a physical and intellectual level.
But as time went on, I started to see the side of her that I was not comfortable with.
As a matter of fact, there were quite a few fundamental ‘red flags’ that I should have had not ignored had I not been too enamoured with her other side.
I kept telling myself, that she would change eventually, I just needed to keep loving her.
My gut feeling, my intuition screamed ‘Get the f**k away!’ - but of course, dear readers, I didn’t, until something really bad happened!
I got ‘unlucky’! Big time! Like a bank heist proportion!
From then on, I learned NOT to ignore my intuition and to listen more carefully to my gut feeling!
Our intuition is like a canary in a mine, we should use it as an early warning radar.
If you want to bring more luck, trust your gut instinct.
4. Find a new path
Luck is a game of chance, and one way to increase our chances is by breaking our routines and finding a new way.
Would you expect that if you do things the same way over and over again you will get different results?
If you do, you are delusional or lazy at best.
2 years ago, the road where we usually took to commute to work and back went into a major redevelopment (creating more lines to ease the congestion).
You can guess what happened, naturally with all these road works, our journey which typically took 20 mins grew to 1 hour - in bad traffic!
Now, I could just keep going the same way and endure the traffic, but I had what people call ‘F**k this’ moment and started finding other alternative roads.
Up until today, I’ve found 3 alternative routes with less traffic and of course, take less time.
I’ve changed my luck!
Break your routine, try the path less travelled and there might be a chance to get lucky.
Keep your routine, and don’t expect to find yourself in a different situation to what you are now, anytime soon - or never.
5. Always be Glass Half Full
How do you change a bad luck into a good luck?
By always thinking positively!
Always have a glass half full rather than a glass half empty.
A “glass half empty” attitude is also stifling your ability to take action (crucial if you want to change your luck).
I have a good friend, and he was and always has been negative about things. Consequently, he is always afraid to take action because he always thinks about all the negative outcomes that might happen if he took that decision. In the end, he ended up doing nothing at all!
Do you think his luck would change? I didn’t - I know because I talk to him regularly, and he is still in the same position as the day we started our friendship 20 years ago - maybe even worse. And if you think I didn’t give him this same advice, I did, too many times.
Always start and end with positive outlook.
It will overcome your fear to take action.
It will turn your failure into a lesson learned.
It will drive you to change and start today!
6. Practice Gratitude
This is what I do every day!
Be thankful for everything you have.
It will change the perception of having a bad luck into a good fortune.
It will become your shield and armour even in the most unfortunate moment of your life.
Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life
I will leave you with this wonderful song full of timeless gems. Best of luck to you all!
Always look on the bright side of life
by Monty Python
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best
And
Ref:
Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the light side of life
If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing
And (Ref)
For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow
Forget about your sin
Give the audience a grin
Enjoy it, it's your last chance anyhow
So always look on the bright side of death
A just before you draw your terminal breath
Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughin' as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you
And (Ref)
I mean, what have you got to lose?
You know, you come from nothing
You're going back to nothing
What have you lost? Nothing
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Hi there!
If you are new, it’s good to see you and thanks for reading so far.
My name is Chris Prakoso, I came originally from Indonesia but am now settling down in Slovakia with my family. I used to write a blog professionally but a few years ago I sold it and I haven’t written anything longer than a Twitter post ever since.
That is until I decided to write again last year and joined Substack.
In the past, I mainly wrote about technology, but here with Life Apprentice I am trying to share some of my life-learned lessons from the past, or today, or something I feel is important for the future.
You can find topics ranging from geeky stuff to parenting, from living a healthy life to travelling, and from personal development to entrepreneurship.
If you enjoy this writing - please consider to subscribe and share.
This post was inspired by the book by MJ Demarco titled “UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship”
Really enjoyed this Chris!
I love this Chris. I love that you finish with Monty Python - brilliant 😂. We make our own luck in life in ways that you have detailed very well. It’s all about getting the right vibration to attract good things. Optimism, gratitude, intention and action all feed into raising your vibration.