There is something incredibly romantic about the concept of luck. The notion that success or some kind of good fortune can be brought by chance rather than one's own actions is something that stirs our imagination. After all, I prefer to believe that I can become a millionaire by finding an abandoned sack of gold in a supermarket car park than thinking I have to graft for it.
But is luck still relevant in a day and age when we're taught that skill, ambition and determination are what get us to the top? A new book by the former professional cricketer Ed Smith, Luck: What it Means and Why it Matters, examines the history of luck, destiny and fate, from the ancient Greeks to the present day, and argues that the question of luck versus skill is as relevant now as it has ever been.
In his book, Smith says that football is the world's most loved sport because of its structural capacity to produce upsets and underdog victories. Luck, it seems, plays a significant role in the game, despite the fact that most major league footballers are highly skilled and trained. "The huge size of football's currency unit - the goal," he writes, "makes luck a far greater force in football than in any other sports."
Smith's main argument is that there are factors behind success other than graft - the main one being luck. But how can we explain the fact that some people are seemingly much luckier than others? The British psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman conducted a 10-year scientific study into the nature of luck, which revealed that, to a large extent, people make their own good fortune.
Prof Wiseman found that lucky people generate luck through four principles - by maximising chance opportunities, listening to lucky hunches, expecting good fortune and turning bad luck into good. It is therefore believed that optimistic and happy people are luckier than their depressed counterparts.
Dr Saliha Afridi, clinical psychologist and managing director at The LightHouse Arabia: Community Psychology Clinic in Dubai, says that happy people tend to be luckier, as they say yes to chance opportunities more often.
"Happy people surround themselves with networks and create new opportunities, rather than stay in their comfort zones," explains Dr Afridi. "They have more resources to cope with the 'bad luck' and turn it into good lessons. Happy individuals see the world as a good place and themselves as capable and deserving of good things. So often their depressed and anxious counterparts attract negative experiences because they are actually looking for it and on a subconscious level they believe they don't deserve luck or happiness."
Lena ter Laare, the founding partner of a Dubai-based marketing and PR firm for the flower industry, agrees with this statement. In 2005, a couple of extremely lucky encounters in Cartagena, Colombia, thousands of miles away from her then-home in Chicago, led her to meet Bas ter Laare, the man who would go on to become her husband and the father of her two children.
"When you're happy and secure in yourself, you bounce into the world expecting to be surprised, as opposed to trudging out there, looking for trouble," she says. "Maybe a better way to put it is that happy people have the eyes to recognise luck, as well as the ability to be grateful for it."
In summary, research says we should, much like Jim Carrey's character in the 2008 film Yes Man, accept opportunities as they arise and strive to turn bad luck into good. In light of this, I will no longer dread my weekly food shop. Instead, I will see it as an opportunity to look for abandoned sacks of gold in the supermarket car park.
