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Chinese culture
If you study Chinese culture you will inevitably come across the
concept of 'luck'.
In fact, there are all sorts of things concerned with increasing the likelihood
of being lucky. What is this all about?
Nonsense?
Despite an enormous amount of superstitious hokum, there is such a
thing as luck.
Although we may prefer to think of ourselves as being the 'masters
of our destiny', this is in fact quite naive.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Luck literally means "success or failure apparently
brought by chance rather than through one's own actions".
The unforeseen
No matter how thoroughly we
research or how
extensively we plan ahead, there will always be factors we can never allow for.
Human beings only possess a limited grasp of things.
The unforeseen, the unknowable, the incomplete will always hinder or help us in
ways we cannot anticipate e.g.
context.
Perspective
We will always be limited by our lack of perspective.
This is the way of things.
Choice
We can choose in some circumstances. We are not always offered a
choice. Even if we can choose, do we choose from a standpoint of wisdom or
confusion?
Will you agree with your decisions in 10 years time?
Birth
If you really in control of your fate, did you get to
choose your birth place?
Your family? Whether or not your family are wealthy or poor?
Whether your parents cared about your education, your psychological and
emotional welfare?
Your home town?
Did you get to pick your appearance, your height, your predilections?
Were you born into a war-torn region?
Job interview
Imagine a job interview...
It can be tempting to believe that hard work and
preparation pays
off.
Sometime is does, sometimes it doesn't.
Your CV, work experience, knowledge and skill may precisely match that of the
other candidates. You may even have better abilities to offer.
Yet someone else gets the job...
Is this because they are better than you in some manner?
How do you know? How can you tell?
Will anybody tell you?
What if there was a 'preferred' candidate all along?
Unseen
You cannot prepare for things you cannot see.
At a job interview there are countless unknowable variables involved e.g.:
How hungry the interviewers are
How nervous they are talking with strangers
Whether they are interested or bored
How much you impress them
Their personality
Their likes/dislikes
Their mood
Your voice
How you speak
The bias, opinions, preconceptions and prejudices of the interviewers
Time of day
Does your face fit?
Emotional vibe
Sense of humour or lack of (yours and theirs)
What is the unspoken criteria?
The salary at stake
How eager you seem
Whether they like you
The cost of training a new starter
The likelihood of long-term commitment from a candidate
How flexible you are seen to be
Whether they are attracted to you
Is the company looking for a particular candidate? Do they have a pre-conceived notion of who they want to hire?
Friendliness
Are they a bully?
Whether they would want to work with you
The list could go on
indefinitely...
People often are unaware of their own
motivations and may not choose
rationally (e.g. gut instinct).
Ultimately, you could perform circus tricks to impress the interviewer or
agree to anything they suggest... and still not get the job.
And you will never know why.
Work
You may work really hard at your job only to be laid off the following week
or somebody else is promoted instead of you or your boss takes credit for
your work.
Alternatively, you may have tremendous success throughout your working life.
Is that because you are the best?
It might worth reading Malcolm Gladwell's
book Outliers before answering...
Lucky
Unlike the Chinese
tradition, you
cannot slew luck in your favour. (If you can, please e-mail us immediately).
What you can do is simple: do your best with what is
known to you, but
recognise that you are unlikely to be seeing the 'big picture'.
A larger picture
Often you can
expand your horizons
and broaden your perspective with research, digging deeper, studying.
This may help to reduce the variables.
But it cannot remove them.
Adapt, change & improvise
Consider: a
tai chi teacher turns up at the hall
early in order to prepare the room for class... This is their income for the day.
The hall is closed. It is filled with decorator's equipment.
When you phone the Hall Manager, they politely apologise for not telling you.
You have to choose between turning away your students and losing pay, or
improvising.
One student suggests a nearby park so you run an outdoor class.
Is it successful or not? Is it raining? Is it
warm or cold? Are you disturbed by local children?
Finding a tai chi class
When a student looks for a tai chi class to attend, they are in a
conundrum.
They need to find a class that corresponds with a free night (or be prepared
to change other arrangements).
Even if the person locates and enjoys a class,
how do they know that the
tai chi being taught is even vaguely authentic?
Self-gratification has nothing to with
authenticity.
The answer is simple: do a heavy amount of research, try out a few different
classes, read The Tai Chi Classics,
do your best to gauge what is being
taught.
Accept that if you were truly capable of
judging an instructor, you'd be an instructor
already and not need lessons...
Guarantees
Preparation does not mean that you can make the right choices in life.
We will always be blind to many factors.
Often we simply make the best choice we can
with the information that we have.
Unfair?
Can you read the minds of other people? Can you foresee the future?
Unlikely.
A productive way forward involves being clear-headed,
sensitive,
alert, mindful and adaptive.
There are
no guarantees.
Wu wei
Taoism recognises the presence of luck in our lives and encourages
people to learn how to flow with what is taking place.
Instead of fighting, resisting,
blocking or becoming upset, we change.
We blend with the moment and work with
what is taking place. This is how tai chi deals with the
experience of combat.
Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer who lost a horse; it ran
away.
All his neighbours came around that evening and said, "That's too bad."
And he said, "Maybe."
The next day the horse came back and brought seven wild horses with it,
and all the neighbours came around and said, "Isn't that great?"
And he replied, "Maybe."
The next day his son was attempting to tame one of the horses and was
thrown from it and broke his leg, and all the neighbours came around and
said, "Well, that's just too bad isn't it?"
And the farmer said, "Maybe."
The next day the conscription officers came around looking for people for
the army,
and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg.
All the neighbours came around in the evening and said, "Isn't that
wonderful?"
And he said, "Maybe."
(Alan Watts)
Page created
18 October 2006
Last updated
16 June 2023
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