Are some people born lucky and some born unlucky?

No they were lucky in that they proactively chose a different path to that set out for them .
My Mum always said we make our own luck
I know several people who had unsuccessful cataract surgery , some whose hip surgery didn’t work
Why blame Luck

I suppose a lot has to do with how someone perceives their good/ bad luck.

I think everyone can have spells of good or bad luck but intrinsically we make our own. I don't really believe in fate either. I've had some experience of both good and bad. I believe that life is what you make it.

Some people don't get a chance to make anything of their lives, because they die young.
That's fairly bad luck, I'd say.

I understand what you mean, OP, and have noticed some people seem to be lucky, but I think it is not as straightforward as that.

Your army friend got he job with DHSS - and most people would have been happy with that and looked no further, but he had a nature that never let any opportunity miss him so, in your words had a look round the corner at ICI and was taken on, then when he lost his job there (hardly a lucky event) he immediately contacted DSS to see what was available, they had offered him a job before. I am sure they did not seek him out.

People like him make their own luck. Other people who have several bad events in their lifes, will still see themselves as lucky people, because they too have this capacity to make their own luck and progress onwards regardless of setbacks.

Also when people consider themselves unlucky, they are often so convinced that this is the truth, that they just resign themselves and make no effort to avoid it. I had an uncle like that, and he drove us mad because so much of his bad luck was self generated. Anything he did round the house was skimped because he knew it would go wrong. In fact doing the job properly in the first place would have obviated much of his 'bad luck'. He broke his shoulder and I went with him to see the specialist who told him, he would probably be left with some residual disfunction but do his exercises as recommended and the effect would be slight. We came out of the consultation room and my uncle turned to me and said, 'My arm is not going to get better, the doctor said so, so no point in dong the exercises. He ended up loosing all function in that arm.

In fact you are doing that yourself in your attitude to your cataract. The problem you have had after your cataract operation is, in fact, quite common. I had it after each of my cataract operations as did my DH. It was remedied with a minor laser treatment. I understand that this problem occurs in as much as one third of all cataract operations. See this link: www.rnib.org.uk/eye-health/eye-conditions/laser-treatment-following-cataract-surgery.

It is the glass half full v glass half empty syndrome. Some people shrug off setbacks and are always taking every opportunity that is offered to them and sees them where others don't. Others are more passive and accept every bad event as a sign of bad luck and do not look for opprotunities because they do not see them

I don't believe you make your own luck. Things that happen to you in life can have a devastating effect on you. Some have the ability to rise above it, some don't.
Some people's lives are very difficult and seem to have one setback after another. Some appear to sail through.

Yes I do think that
I m not going into any details but some people do seem to get all the breaks and others with an equal background, equal upbringing, equal intelligence get no breaks and some get them all one thing after another fall into their lap
I don’t quite understand why or how but it definitely happens in my opinion

I do know two people who I think have been very unlucky, and not because of any bad choices they’ve made, or things they have or haven’t done. Just the (rotten) luck of the draw.
Can’t go into detail here though.

I’m sure there are plenty who are the architects of their own misfortune but blame bad luck. I can’t say I know any, though.

In a rather superficial way I have what I call a lucky streak. If I buy a raffle ticket, more often than not I win something. My premium bonds have earned me more in prizes than my savings have in interest. I know this is trivial but I can't see how it can be attributed to anything other than pure luck.

I think you are right in as much as some people have really rotten luck all their lives, having done nothing to deserve it at all. I have a friend like this, going right back to her childhood, it was one disaster after another, and we all know people who come up smelling of roses whatever happens.

On the whole, taking my own life as an example, I think you get spells of good luck, times when you go on for years, with everything going your way, and then it seems to change, and everything that can, goes wrong.

My husband always says it’s better to be born lucky than rich, and that’s probably true

I think fate plays it’s part, we’ve probably all had the experience of being disappointed over something, only to find the alternative is so much better.

DH has a sci-fi book predicated on only allowing people to crew the space craft, who can prove 3 generations of lucky ancestors plus them.

I think life is a mixture of luck and what we make of it by our own efforts. As Kate1949 said some people have setbacks others seem to sail through.

Yes, especially in the health department.

And, as a Humanist, I truly believe this - in all it’s glory is what we’ve got in this life. No after-life. That why I get upset when I hear what some people’s lives are like. We don’t get another run at it.

The fickle finger of Fate.

I think that a lot is to do with attitude to life. What some see as bad luck (eg losing a job) others see as opportunity to make changes, such as re-training for a new career.

I have a friend who is convinced that I am lucky and he isn't. He thinks that the fact that I have more friends than he does is because of luck, whereas I see it as because I make an effort to call people, check to see how they are getting on, invite them round and so on. If I say that something nice has happened, he is likely to respond with 'oh, you would, wouldn't you?', but forgets that (as an example) if I have heard about an opportunity to do something, it is because I have gone out somewhere, spoken to someone and was told about it, whilst he sat in the house feeling sorry for himself.

I once read that these things are a bit like the 'got to be in it to win it' slogan that the lottery used to use. If you go to a party, say, and talk to six people, they will each know another 6, and so on. If you mention that you are looking to buy a house in a particular street, you have a one in six chance of speaking to someone at the party who knows of one coming up for sale. But if all of those people mention it to someone else, and they drop it into a conversation with one of their contacts, the number of people who get to hear about it grows very quickly, and before long there are dozens of people who know you are looking. If one of them gets in touch, it might look as though you are very lucky, but actually it's a numbers game, and the person who can't be bothered to go to the party isn't in the running.

Things like bad health are a matter of luck, however, and it is definitely true that some people get more chances in life because of their birth (which also comes down to luck), but all things being equal, I think that a lot of the time we make our own.

Things like hereditary illnesses you are born with but apart from that I think life is the choices you make. Some have a background that ‘helps’ them to make choices, for example, they are sent to exclusive schools etc but they still have to put their bit in.

If you only pick out the good things in someone's life it would appear they are lucky, and just the bad would appear unlucky.

Gosh, sorry - that sounded so gloomy when I read it back just now! I’m a glass half-full type of person (apart from some health anxiety as I’ve gotten older) and I’m very grateful for the blessings I have and I don’t take them for granted. I’m not sure I believe in luck as such. ‘Being in the right place at the right time’ springs to mind though.
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I'm just watching 24 hours in a and e.

The 32 year old man with advanced MS convinces me that it's purely pot luck.

Poor man can't even swallow on his own.

i think that psychologically it suits us to think that we can control our lives and destiny.
so we grant that some people are afflicted by illnesses which is bad luck, but if they fail to make enough effort, to progress their lives, jobs, activities, then that is somehow chosen.
even if by opting out or assuming failure.
so we comfort ourselves that we we not suffer their lack of opportunities because we will make an effort.
but what about social phobia, and other less obvious conditions that restrict people's chances.
none of us know what it is to look out from another's lived reality.
we do not know what they are dealing with.
and if we did have their experience, maybe we would have made worse fist of it.
every one is trying to live, to find a way to be human.

Being in the right place at the right time is kind of what I was saying, though. People who don't go anywhere, and don't talk to people are sabotaging their chances of having supposedly 'lucky' things happen to them.

If that is because of a mental health issue, then that comes under 'bad luck', the same as other forms of illness, but that doesn't mean that someone who socialises more, or who is generally friendly is 'lucky' - there is more to it than that. it's not a value judgement, it's a numbers game.

I suppose if you are born in a very poor area and your parents are in and out of jail it would be a lot harder to find ‘luck’ than someone who has a rich background with parents who have good contacts. Not impossible ,of course, but the odds are against them because criminality might be a way of life for survival or just the usual expectation. When I was working we came across families like this and it was terribly hard for the children who were well and truly pigeon holed from a young age.

We have no control over the events that happen to us in life, but we do have control over how we respond to them and manage them.

I come from a family where time and again people have shown their capacity to triumph over adversity, unaided by money or influential friends. Just sheer bloodymindedness and a refusal to be cowed by 'bad luck'. As a result they were very 'lucky'

There's an old saying that the harder I work the luckier I get...