Livingstone

A Man With One Leg Can't Run As Fast As A Man With Two

The concept of success and failure is quite damaging and actually erroneous, because there is no such thing as success and failure. There is one’s experiences and challenges, and how the individual faces up to all of that. A man with one leg can’t run as fast as a man with two, but running might well be more Herculean on the face of his difficulties.

Throughout my whole life I’ve worked towards achievements. But who said I have achieve anything? Professional athletes are great examples. They perform with their whole being at the pinnacle of sport. And there may be enormous satisfaction in doing so. But is that really an achievement? Or is it just something few people get to experience?  At the end of the day, it’s actually irrelevant how it compares to anything else. It’s totally irrelevant. People try to rate achievements, but in truth, they’re only relevant to—and only able to be rated in connection with—the potentialities of the individual involved.

It’s a bit disconcerting that potential implies luck. No matter how determined or skilled, one can fall short of their aspirations due to bad luck.

Luck is fascinating. My favorite thing about the concept of luck is that everyone has their own definition. Whichever way you put it, luck is defined as the probability of an event occurring; chance.

Luck is a difficult concept to understand because an event is invisible. If five people witness an event with a clearly defined outcome, you can be certain that there will be five different accounts as to how that outcome occurred. Don’t believe me? Just listen to the TV announcers of a football game argue whether a touchdown was due to a great pass or block.

I view luck as a series of accidents, for lack of a better word. Basically you are striving for a result but got there in a way that you might not necessarily understand. People are predisposed to make certain decisions in a given situation. You can’t all of a sudden try to use a strategy that you don’t know is a good strategy. In our example above, it is possible that the touchdown was a result of a past play. Maybe something happened that forced a specific player into a situation that they weren’t comfortable with. I’m not trying to be specious— only trying to make a point.

These accidents, successful or not, drastically alter the outcomes of events— from games to careers. The interesting thing is that if you apply this concept on a micro level, that is, within an industry, these situations become exploitable over time and you will find less accidents. Unfortunately, in life we don’t have that luxury. You only get one swing of the bat. There are certain situations that you just cannot be prepared for. It is possible that these events will alter your trajectory. If you want to realize your full potential you need the right situation to meet the perfect accident.