Something for you to ponder.
By Professor Richard Wiseman, University of Hertfordshire-
Why do some people get all the luck while others never get the breaks they deserve?
A psychologist says he has discovered the answer.
Ten years ago, I set out to examine luck. I wanted to know why some people are always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune. I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.
Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my
research and over the years, I have interviewed them, monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments.
The results reveal that although these people have almost no
insight into the causes of their luck,their thoughts and behavior are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune. Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities.
Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.
I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a
newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: "Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $50."
This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high.It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected.
As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job
advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for. My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles.They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
Towards the end of the work, I wondered whether these principles could be used to create good luck. I asked a group of volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises
designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person.
Dramatic results! These exercises helped them spot chance
opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.
One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80% of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and,perhaps most important of all, luckier.
The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had
become lucky.
Finally, I had found the elusive "luck factor".
Here are Professor Wiseman's four top tips for becoming lucky:
1) Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right
2) Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine
3) Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well
4) Visualize yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call.
Have a Lucky day and work for it.
The happiest people in the world are not those who have no
problems, but those who learn to live with things that are less than perfect.
The only difference between a happy person and a depressed person is how they respond to disasters.
Imagine u have just had a wonderful afternoon at the beach with a fren. When u return home, u find a huge truck-load of dung has been dumped right in front of ur door. There are 3 things to know abt this truck-load of dung:
1. U did not order it. It's not ur fault.
2. U're stucked with it. No one saw who dumped it, so u cannot call anyone to take it away.
3. It is filthy and offensive, and its stench fills ur whole house. It's almost impossible to endure.
In this metaphor, the truck-load of dung in front of the house stands for the traumatic experiences that are dumped on us in life. As with the truck-load of dung, there are 3 things to know about tragedy in our life:
1. We did not order it. We say "Why me?"
2. We're stucked with it. No one, not even our best frens can take it away.
3. It is so awful, such a destroyer of our happiness, and its pain fills our whole life. It is almost impossible to endure.
There r 2 ways of responding to being stuck with a truck-load of dung. The first way is to carry the dung around with us. We put some in our pockets, some in our bags, some up our shirts. We even put some down our pants. We find when we carry the dung around, we lose a lot of frens. Even best frens dun seem to be around so often.
"Carrying the dung" is a metaphor for sinking into depression, negativity or anger. It is a natural and understandable response to adversity. But we lose a lot of frens, because it is so natural and understandable that frens dun like being around us when we're so depressed. Moreover, the pile of dung gets no less, but the smell gets worse as it ripens.
Fortunately there's a second way. When we r dumped with a truck-load of dung, we heave a sigh, and then get down to work. Out come the wheelbarrow, the fork and the spade. We fork the dung into the barrow, wheel it around the back of the house and dig it into the garden. This is tiring and difficult work, but we know there's no other way out. Sometimes, all we can manage is half a barrow a day. We're doing something about the problem, rather than complaining our way into depression. DAy after day we dig into the dung, day after day it gets smaller. Sometimes it may take several years, but the morning does come when we see that the pile of dung is gone. Furthermore, a miracle has happened in another part of the house. The flowers in our garden are bursting out in a richness of colour all over the place. Their fragrance wafts down the street so tat the neighbours, and even the passer by, smile in delight. Then the fruit trees in the corner is nearly falling over, it's so heavy with fruits. And the fruit is so sweet; u can't buy anything like it. There's so much that we r able to share with our neighbours. Even passer by get a delicious taste of the miracle fruit.
"Digging the dung" is a metaphor for welcoming the tragedies as fertiliser for life. It is work that we have to do alone: no one can help us. But digging it into the garden of our heart, day by day, the pile gets less. It may take several years, but the mornign does come when we see no more pain in our life and, in our heart, a miracle has happened. Flowers of kindness are bursting out al over the place, an dthe fragrance of love wafts way downour street, to our neighbours, to our relations and even to passers-by. Then the wisdomtree in the corner is bending down to us, loaded with sweet insights into the nature of life. We share those delicious fruits freely, even with the passers-by, without ever planning to.
When we have known tragic pain, learnt its lesson and grown our garden, then we can put our hands around another person in deep tragedy and say"I know". They realise we do understand. We show them the wheelbarrow, the fork and the spade. If we haven grown our garden yet, this can't be done.
In a quiet Mexican fishing village, an American on vacation was watching a local fisherman unload his morning catch. The American, a successful professor at a prestigious US business school, couldn't resist giving the fisherman a little bit of advice.
"Hey!" began the American, "Why r u finishing so early?"
"Since I caught enuff fish", replied the fisherman,"enuff to feed my family and a little extra to sell. Now I will take some lunch with my wife and, after a little siesta in the afternoon, I will play with my children. Then after dinner I will go to the cantina, drink a little tequila and play some guitar with my frens. It is enuff for me."
"Listen to me fren," said the professor. "If u stay out at sea till late afternoon, u will easily catch twice as much fish. U can sell the extra, save up the money, an din 6 months time, maybe nine, u'll be able to buy a bigger and better boat and hire some crew. Then u'll be able to catch 4 times as many fish. Think of the extra money u will make! In another year or 2, u will have the capital to buy a 2nd fishing boat and hire another crew. If u follow this business plan, in 6 or 7 years, u'll be the proud owner of a large fishing fleet. Just imagine that! Then u should move ur head office to L.A. After only 3 or 4 years in L.A, u float ur company on the stockmarket giving urself, as CEO, aqa generous salary package with substantial share options. In a few years- listen to this! u initiate a company share buy-back scheme, which will make u a multi-millionaire! Guaranteed! I'm a well known professor as a US business school. I know these things."
The fisherman listened thoughtfully at what the animated American had to say. When the professor had finished, the fisherman asked him," But what do I do with so many millions of dollars?"
Surprisingly, the American professor hadn't thot the business plan through that far. So he quickly figured out what a person would do with millions of dollars.
"Amigo! With all that dough, u can retire. Yeah! Retire for life. U can buy a little villa in a picturesque fishing village like this one, and purchase a small boat for going fishing in the morning. U can have lunch with ur wife everyday, and a siesta afterwards with nothing to worry u. In the afternoon u can spend quality time with ur kids and after dinner in the evening, play guitar with ur frens in the cantina, drinking tequila. Yeah, with all that money, my fren, u can retire and take it easy."
"But professor, I do all that already."
Why do we believe that we have to work so hard and get rich first, before we can find contentment?
J. P. Morgan was a financial wizard who also believed in psychic phenomenon, specifically mind over matter.
“I was twenty-four, maybe twenty-five, when I had a life-altering experience,” recalled the famous banker a few years before his death. “I was playing poker with a few friends when someone I had never met, a man about sixty years old, asked if he could sit in. He had tagged along with one of our regulars and before long he had accumulated most of the chips.
“He was winning most of the hands and seemingly had lady luck on his side. There was something about the man, his unwavering positive attitude, that intrigued me, and afterwards I cornered him and asked if he had anything else on his side besides good luck.
“At first he thought I might be accusing him of cheating, but I assured him I wasn’t. Smiling, he patted me on the back and revealed to me his secret of success. And I have never forgotten it. In fact, this stranger changed my life then and there.”
What the man told Morgan was this: Go into everything you do with complete assurance that you’re going to emerge a victor. Don’t show self-doubt, don’t be meek, don’t do anything half way. Speak from your heart with conviction and the spirits will make things happen.
“He assured me,” Morgan continued, “that if I followed his advice and truly believed in what he said, opponents (competitors) will feel momentum rushing to my side, altering the odds in my favor, affording me success beyond my wildest dreams. What’s more, he said, they will respect me, perhaps even overestimate my talents ?which is not at all a bad thing.”
Morgan wrote: “From that day on, I knew whatever endeavor I decided to tackle, I would do it with gusto, with conviction, with a mindset that no one could stop me, regardless of the challenge, regardless of the obstacles blocking my way. I learned from that day forth, that there are, indeed, spirits in the air, surrounding us, awaiting our bidding, and it is simply a matter of learning how to converse with them.”
Morgan conceded that he was fortunate in that he had the “gift” of contacting these spirits, these forces, and that not everyone was capable of doing so.
F. BermanWhite Plains, New York
The following story is abstracted from the book "Opening the door of ur heart"
After we purchased the land for our monastery in 1983 we were broke. We were in debt. There were no buildings on the land, not even a shed. Those first few weeks we slept on old doors we had bought cheaply from the salvage yard; we raised them on the bricks at each corner to lift them off the ground. (There were no mattress of course-we were forest monks.)
The abbot had the best door, the flat one. My door was ribbed with a sizeable hole in teh centre where the door handle would have been. I was glad the doorknob had been removed, but that left a hole in the very centre of my door-bed. I joked that now I wouldn't need to get out of bed to go to the toilet. The cold truth was, however, that the wind would come up through the hole. I didn't sleep much those nights.
We were poor monks who needed buildings. We're couldn't afford to employ a builder- the materials were expensive enough. So I had to learn how to build: how to prepare the foundations, lay concrete and bricks, erect the roof, put in the plumbing- a whole lot. I had been theoretical physicist and a high school teacher in my lay life, not used to working with my hands. After a few years, I became quite skilled at building,even calling my crew the BBC(Buddhist Building Company). But when I started it was very difficult.
It may look easy to lay a brick; just a dollop of mortar underneath, a little tap here, a little tap there. When I began laying bricks, I'd tap one corner down to make it level and another corner would go up. So I'd tap that corner down then the brick would move out of line. After I'd nudged it back into line, the first corner would be too high again. You try it!
Being a monk, I had patience and as much time as I needed. I made sure every single brick was perfect, no matter how long it took. Eventually I completed my first brick wall and stood back to admire ir. It was only then that I noticed-oh no!- I'd missed two bricks. All the other bricks were nicely in line, but these 2 were inclined at an angle. They looked terrible. They spoiled the whole wall. They ruin it.
By then teh cement mortar was too hard for the bricks to be taken out, so I asked the abbot if I could knock the wall down and start al over again- or even better, blow it up. I'd made a mess of it and I was very embarrassed. The abbot said no, the wall had to stay.
When I showed our first visitors around our fledgling monastery, I always tried to avoid taking them past my brick wall. I hated anyone seeing it. Then one day, some three or four months after I finished it, I was walking with a visitor and he saw the wall.
"That's a nice wall," he casually remarked.
"Sir," I replied in surprised."have u left ur glasses in ur car? Are u visually impaired? Can't u see those 2 bad bricks which spoil the whole wall?"
What he said next changed my whole view of that wall, of myself, and of many other aspect of life. He said "Yes. I can see those 2 bad bricks. But I can also see the 988 good bricks as well."
I was stunned. For the first time in over 3 months, I could see other bricks in that wall apart from the 2 mistakes. Above, below, to the left and to the right of the bad bricks were good bricks, perfect bricks. Moreover, the perfect bricks were many, many more than the 2 bad bricks. Before, my eyes would focus exclusively on my 2 mistakes; I was blind to everything else. That was why I couldn't bear looking at the wall, or having others see it. that was why I wanted to destroy it. Now that I could see the good bricks, the wall didn't look so bad after all. It was, as the visitor had said "a nice brick wall". It's still there now, twenty years later, but I've forgotten exactly where those bad bricks are. I literally cannot see those mistakes anymore.
How many people end a relationship or get divorced because all they can see in their partner are "2 bad bricks"? How many of us become depressed or even contemplate suicide, because all we can see in ourselves are "2 bad bricks". In truth, there are many many more good bricks, perfect bricks- above, below, to the left and to the right of the faults- but at times we just can't see them. Instead, every time we look, our eyes focus exclusively at the mistakes. The mistakes we all see, and they're all we think are there, so we want to destroy them. And sometimes, sadly, we do destroy a "very nice wall"
We all got our 2 bad bricks, but the perfect bricks in each one of us are much much more than the mistakes. Once we see this, things aren't so bad. Not only can we live at peace with ourselves, inclusive of our faults, but we can also enjoy living with a partner. This is bad news for divorce lawyers, but good news for u.
I have told this anecdote many times. After one ocasion, a builder came up to me and told me a professional secret. "We builders always make mistakes," he said, "But we tell our clients that it is "an original feature" with no other house in the neighbourhood like it. And we charge them a couple of thousand dollars extra!"
So the "unique feature" in the house probably started out as mistakes. In the same way, what u might take out to be mistakes in urself, in ur partner, or in life in general, can become "unique features", enriching ur time here, once u stop focusing on them exclusively.
Somehow I feel that a lot of things happened today. So this blog is gonna be quite long...
Was caught in the jam on the way back from Senai to Singapore. And in the midst of the jam, I was thinking "Why am I always so unlucky when I'm in a queue? As in whichever queue I was at, the queue will be the slowest." And then, I asked myself " Did I ever remember the times when I overtook other cars?" We tend to remember the bad side of things. And we take the positive things that happen to us for granted. I took it for granted whenever my car in a queue overtook other cars in the next queue. And when I'm in the slower queue, I'll harpe and harpe over it... What about u?
After that I was exchanging sms with a fren and she told me that her mum is kinda pissing her off. She knows she's for her good but the way she's doing it is getting on her nerves. I must say, to some extent, perhaps her mum's method is wrong. But maybe she's brought up in this way and therefore thinks that's the correct way to do? We are what we are because of things that happen to us and how we interpret it. Perhaps to her mum, that's the best way to do things? Or that's the only way she knows to get things done, without knowing that she's getting on her daughter's nerves. Sometimes when we're pissed we'll show a black face. And the other party sense it and in return, continue or do even more nasty things. That's what my self fulfilling prophecy means. I do not exactly know what happen, but I hope that all things are well now. Communication is an important thing.
And for the last thing I'll going to write tonight... My grandma passed away 2 days ago. I dunno if there's something wrong with me, but I really dun feel anything. I'm not at all sad for her demise. Maybe since young, grandma is a blurry figure to me. And I only get to see her once a year, until a few years ago when she's ousted out by my uncle and lives with us. But when she's with us, I seldom talk to her too, due to my work then. And after some time, due to my parents going overseas for a few months and the maid resigning, she's put in the homes as none of her 5 sons and daughter "wanted" her. And since then, I visited her occasionally at the homes.
I must say in my 27 years of life, I never know grandma knows me. She seems a distant figure to me. Until about 3 years ago when she got into hospital. And at that time my parents were abroad and I had to "represent" my family to visit her. And that's the first time I cut banana into smaller pieces and feed her as she cannot chew. And that's the very first time, I know she knows me.
In a way, I must say that grandma had extended her life. She's diagnosed with advanced stage intestinal cancer a year ago and had an operation to remove part of her intestines. Therefore she can only excrete through a hole made in her stomach. At that time, the doctor said that she can only live for about 6 months to a year. Therefore I feel she had extended her live.
Perhaps the sadest thing is to see all the uncles fighting after grandma pass on. When she's alive, they're always biting each other, quarrelling and fighting. And to the extent of disowning one another. And now, after grandma leaves, I really wonder what will happen. Well, I can't do anything about it. And I can't control it. Just wait and see. The 6 of them just need to learn to love one another...
Some people believe that death is the end. But I believe death is just the beginning.
