I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
—Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States

Great things take time.

But the actions that lead you to them begin right now, in this moment.

That’s why luck is a force you can control.

The Paradox of Luck

When someone fails, the commonest words to come out of their mouth are, “You know, I just had a streak of bad luck.”

Compare that to the words that come out when someone succeeds, “I made it happen. I worked hard for this.”

We have all heard this. When bad things happen, we blame it on the wrath of a god or misfortune, even though it might have been our fault. And when we stumble upon good fortune, we take all the credit, even if we had nothing to do with it.

That’s the paradox of luck—we think it’s out of our control, but we also bend it to suit our narratives.

It’s the perfect logical fallacy that allows us to displace responsibility in critical times and take credit in good times, even the kind that doesn’t belong to us.

That’s why it doesn’t make sense to say that luck is out of our control. If it were, we wouldn’t be able to manipulate the effects of luck to suit our motives.

This truth comes with good news and bad news.

The good news is, you become “the master of your fate, the captain of your soul” as William Ernest Henley wrote in the 19^th century.

The bad news is, taking responsibility becomes non-negotiable. To be the king of your fortune and luck, you must own up to everything as if you were responsible.

Failed? You’re responsible for the mistakes you made.
Messed up? You made the wrong decision. Own up to it and clean up the mess.
A colleague left you in the dark? You should have known better. Put in the extra work yourself and do what you promised.
Did your best, but something out of your control messed it all up? Accept the reality, learn from the situation, deal with any consequences or challenges, and move on.

Is this fair? No. It isn’t. You probably don’t deserve to face all these challenges and hardships, but is complaining and blaming going to change the situation? Also No. Accepting responsibility, on the other hand, is a promising solution.

It’s the first step toward becoming the master of your fate. If you can handle bad luck responsibly, you can easily create good luck.

The Difference That Makes the Difference

We’ve all read Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, which ends with, “I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”

It’s a powerful line. And I don’t want to divert into poetry analysis here, but I want to point out how Robert Frost penned it, and the powerful lesson it holds for us.

Throughout the poem, there’s tension in him that comes out as contemplation: “Should I take this road, or should I take the other one?”

He’s not sure. By the end, our patience is stretched thin. We’re curious to know what he did, and we hit the last line where he not only makes the choice, but also tells us the deep impact it left on him (since it made all the difference).

Our lives are the same. We don’t just make choices; we also marry the consequences that come with them, good and bad. But we don’t realize this when we make those choices. So, when the consequences inevitably surface to the top, we run for a divorce and blame everything on luck.

But when we make those choices with awareness, we recognize what Robert Frost did—the choice makes all the difference.

In every situation of our lives, we get that window of choice (which is entirely in our control) and the decision we make in that moment dictates what our luck and fortune will be.

Many factors that affect our lives aren’t in our control. We can’t choose who our parents are. We can’t decide whether we’re born in a rich, influential family that hands everything to us, or as a physically disabled person in a war zone. We can’t predict when or how our loved ones will pass away. We don’t even know when we’ll take our last breath.

Uncertainty, challenges, and limitations are a part of life. We can’t always change them. But we can always change the choices and decisions we make, and that is the only factor that creates our fate and luck.

The most certain way to overcome your challenges is to outwork them and do well despite them. Now, that’s a choice we can all make, regardless of how unlucky we feel.

You can pursue greatness; it just asks you to embrace responsibility first, and that begins right now.

This isn’t a popular choice, but it is a pivotal one. Make it today, and one day, you’ll look back on your life, thinking of this moment, coming to the same conclusion as Robert Frost, “I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”