Luck & Opportunity
So, Seneca, one of those old-school Stoic guys, said something pretty clever once: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Now, you might be wondering, what the hell does that mean? Allow me to break it down.
You see, most folks see luck as some kind of magical fairy dust sprinkled on a select few by the cosmic gods of the universe. You’re born lucky, you win the lottery, you stumble upon the next billion-dollar startup idea while eating cereal, that kind of thing. But that’s a load of baloney. It’s lazy thinking, it’s a way to shirk responsibility for your own fate. You’re not a cork bobbing in the ocean of life; you have oars, damn it, so start rowing.
When Seneca talks about “preparation”, he’s talking about the grind. The late nights honing your craft, the years of study, the sweat, the toil, the failures and the lessons learned from them. It’s the grind that puts you in the right mindset, it arms you with the tools you need to seize opportunities when they come knocking.
Opportunity is like a bus. It pulls up to the stop every now and then, and if you’ve got the right ticket — preparation — you can hop on. If you’re just standing there with your hands in your pockets, thinking the bus driver is going to let you on for free…well, good luck with that.
But here’s where the magic happens. When you’re prepared — when you’ve done the work, honed the skills, built the resilience — opportunities start to seem like they’re cropping up all over the place. You’re attuned to them, ready for them, and boom! Suddenly you’re “lucky”. But it’s not some mystical force. It’s the product of your own hard work.
Now, you might be thinking, “Okay, Brian, that’s all very well, but what about today? How is this ancient wisdom relevant in our digital, hyperconnected, AI-infused world?” And the answer is, it’s more relevant than ever.
In this era, we’re flooded with information and opportunities. The bus is no longer pulling up to the stop every now and then — it’s pulling up every minute of every day. But in the flurry of those opportunities, it’s easy to get swept away, to hop on a bus going in the wrong direction or miss the bus altogether because we’re too busy scrolling through Instagram.
Seneca’s wisdom reminds us that to catch the right bus — to seize the right opportunity — we need to prepare. We need to invest in our skills, deepen our knowledge, develop resilience, and stay focused. It’s not just about being in the right place at the right time, but also being the right person when the time comes.
So, start grinding. Put in the work. And next time you see a “lucky” person, remember — they’re just someone who was prepared when their bus pulled up.
