what to say when someone says theyre lucky to have you

A few months agone I read the Matched series. (If anyone wants to cry with me over book 3, I'1000 bachelor by email).

The story takes place in a futurity society that… umm... has its flaws.

Anyhow, the idea of "luck" had been totally eradicated in this new earth.

From Matched:

"I respond, "That we are very lucky," and I mean it... The hostess corrects me gently. "Not lucky, Cassia. In that location is no luck in the Society." Of form. I should know meliorate than to apply such an archaic, inaccurate term. There's only probability now. How probable something is to occur, or how unlikely."

And then some other mention of information technology in the second book, Reached:

"You think that boy was lucky?" I enquire Vick. "Lucky," Vick says as he doesn't know what the word means. And maybe he doesn't. Luck is not a word the Society encourages.... "The Society doesn't believe in luck," Eli says."

(*Notation: this is non a core part of the story line. Actually, it doesn't even thing in the story. The leading lady only mentions the nonexistence of "luck" in passing twice. Chances are if you read the serial, y'all don't even think these 2 moments. I'm a niggling batty most the discussion "luck" (as you'll soon find out!) that both of these instances stayed with me.)

Now a confession: I don't similar the word "lucky" or existence chosen lucky. Well, unless I am actually lucky. Like the 1 and only fourth dimension I put some money in a slot machine and more than tripled that coin in less than a minute. (I cashed out immediately. My momma didn't raise no fool!).

Anyway, I fussed, munched on my nails, and walked effectually in circles (literally! behind my desk!) for days debating whether or not I wanted to admit this (and admit information technology and then publicly) and if I wanted to write this weblog post... but then something happened and I knew I had to exist honest.

A friend of mine has been pounding the pavement trying to be an actress for years. YEARS. We're talking almost two decades. I have absolutely no hesitation when I say she has worked her butt off and I would have given up eons ago if it were me. I actually don't know how she kept going. Really, I'g in awe of her.

Nevertheless, her dedication and persistence paid off when she landed an INCREDIBLE office on a really hot Television receiver prove. She'southward going to exist a big, big celebrity. All sorts of opportunities are going to open upwards to her and many already accept.

I couldn't be more happy or thrilled for her and when the news broke, I was eager to take her out to celebrate.

There we were at dinner, just a agglomeration of u.s. girls, when ane of our mutual friends lifted her glass and said, "Tabitha* yous are soooooo lucky!"

I watched Tabitha deflate like a airship. Her grinning slipped away. Her drinking glass started to lower. Her unabridged body expression -- head, shoulders, face, optics, ears -- went from "overjoyed" to "depressed," only always an extra, she recovered quickly. As our friend'due south toast continued, Tabitha smiled a fake smiling, raised her glass support and said "gee thanks!" I don't retrieve anyone else caught what I did.

Merely I knew what happened.

I knew how Tabitha felt.

And as the dark wore on, I heard at least three other people say "Wow! LUCKY!" or some variation to her.

If you await up the definition of "luck" or "lucky" you'll become some variation of this:

"Success or failure patently brought by take a chance rather than through one'south own actions."

Mayhap now you run into why beingness called "lucky" tin brand me derailed. Or why it hurt Tabitha'south feelings.

It's like they were writing off the fact that Tabitha spent near 20 years going on auditions (probably close to 1,000 full -- and dealing with an equal corporeality of rejection), networking, taking classes, taking unpaid jobs for experience, etc.

Of course I know these thoughts and feelings are not what anyone means or intends when they say "y'all're so lucky" but that's the spooky effect this proverb has.

Sort of like the nasty chilling effect of maxim anything other than "thank you" when y'all give someone a compliment. (p.s. that mail service is a MUST read).

Point is, c alling someone "lucky" tin can really hurt.

And calling someone lucky, that actually isn't, is like telling that same person, "You lot don't deserve the happiness or success you have, because y'all didn't earn it."

After the Tabitha upshot, I witnessed another instance of "lucky" gone wrong.

A different friend posted about her promotion on Facebook. Or, well, she posted a movie of her brand spankin' new car on Facebook.

One of the kickoff comments to the motion-picture show was "lucky duck" and my friend'south response was that she wasn't lucky. That she'd worked really hard to get her promotion. That she deserved it. That she made huge sacrifices to be able to afford this machine. That she'd earned her new motorcar. That no one just gave information technology to her. That she didn't win it on the Toll Is Right, in which and so, and simply then, would she be "lucky." *

Then when I was writing this post, (seriously Every bit I was writing information technology!), this annotate from Leah (beneath) popped up on an sometime post, Beneath Every Body is an Untold Story. In that postal service I retell two stories, one nearly my friend Liz* who had lost 45lbs. Anyway, Liz went to a party where most of the attendees did not know her 45lbs ago. During the party, another person grabbed her waist and said "Gosh I wish I was naturally skinny like y'all!" and then went on to call my friend lucky. How "lucky" she was to be so sparse and so on.

Liz was hurt. She felt every bit though the woman'south comment (which was a compliment!) negated or belittled all her hard piece of work. All those calories she counted. All those mornings she got out of bed at 5am to go to the gym before her iii kids woke up. All the times she dug deep and avoided her weakness for cookies, cakes, champagne, and chocolate, etc.

To Liz, it felt like a back handed compliment.

Meanwhile the commenter, Leah, wrote in response, " I totally empathize how it feels to accept people make these comments about you. It feels like they are delegitimizing the work many good for you people put into beingness good for you. I was getting dressed before a friend'due south wedding with the bridesmaids, and ane of them turned to me and said "Oh skinny people like you just brand me ill!". I was then offended. I didn't say annihilation. Not merely is that not a dainty comment, just it negated the fact that I've been eating salubrious for years and am an athlete. It negated whatever of my personal choices that make me who I am, choices that I am proud of making."

I agree the off handed comment was mean, and yes, she didn't call Leah "lucky", just I call back the situations are related.

So oft we don't come across the chilling outcome our words have.

Fifty-fifty if Liz had been super sweet and polite, maxim, "Well actually, it'south not luck. I work really hard to look this way. I lost 45lbs. but I appreciate your generous compliment!" -- that just doesn't work socially. At to the lowest degree, non in my feel. No 1 likes to be "corrected". And think that chilling issue about not maxim thanks? And trying to "win"?sigh.

And what could Leah accept said?

I could ramble off another two dozen stories or instances like these.

I take tried to exist mindful of my use of the discussion "luck" because when someone calls me lucky with respect to my blog, or books, or Happy Herbivore, or my nomadic lifestyle -- it often feels similar they are saying all my hard work didn't count.That I didn't earn this.

That all those ginormous sacrifices I made --- that my family made, didn't actually thing. That all that planning and hard piece of work was actually pointless.

Now don't get me wrong. I withal practise feel lucky in many ways, but I've likewise come up to capeesh that it'southward non all luck.I've worked non-stop, 60-80 hour weeks for half dozen years straight to grow my business and seize my dream.

Where does that attempt fit into the definition of luck?

Of form, I know when someone says, "You're so lucky", they don't mean what I experience. I know that's my own pride and ego that'south bruising.

And maybe that's something to be ashamed about -- I don't know. I only promise to bring to calorie-free the chilling outcome calling someone "lucky" can have. Equally a minimalist, I seek mindfulness, more awareness, and this is function of that.

Has someone always said "yous're so lucky" to you and it bummed yous out?

Going dorsum to Tabitha, perhaps she was lucky that she found a practiced amanuensis, and that her agent was paying enough attending to find this audience for her, and that her auto didn't break down on the way to the audition (these things are all out of Tabitha'southward control). But the rest falls on Tabitha, no? Was it actually just luck that she got this role?

It all just gets soo sticky!

Even people who appear to be lucky (in terms of success), I find when you look behind the curtain, there is so much more than luck at play.

For example, recall nigh those singers on shows like American Idol or The Phonation. It'south a great opportunity to be "discovered" (no denying that) and every twelvemonth one of them is discovered and that person "made a star." They were so lucky to accept the opportunity, right?

Yet it's even so non allluck. They had to audition and compete, and for most of the "winners," you lot hear stories virtually how they were singing at church, schoolhouse and any place they could for years earlier their audition. Effectively, they were perfecting their phonation and their practice then when the opportunity to exist "discovered" as an artist came along, they were fix and prepared for it. They could seize their in one case-in-a-lifetime opportunity... and they did.

And I can say the aforementioned for a lot of my once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. I have seized all the opportunities I could, but a lot of them wouldn't have come along at all if I hadn't beginning done the legwork. Even those that just bubbled up without my prior involvement -- I was but plain ol' lucky to have the opportunity -- I wouldn't have been able to take them had I not first done the legwork. (Conspicuously, it's all in the legwork as Tabitha's story attests!).

Or what about 1 of my favorite comedy actors, Ashton Kutcher? If y'all don't know his personal bio, he was, straight-upwards, "discovered" in a bar while in college. He was recruited for a modeling competition, won, and signed a huge modeling contract with an agency in New York .

Certain he was lucky to be in the bar at the correct time. Maybe you can even say he was lucky to be born so good looking, but his success and his career today is more just luck. He's had to work for it, too. It hasn't all been handouts (and as I've learned in my business, handouts often don't thing.)

Maybe A.K. had a little chip of luck, or a lot of luck, but what'due south important is what he did with that luck, correct? It hasn't been all luck. Ashton's huge success today wasn't completely "brought by chance rather than through his own actions." Information technology was his actions later on a petty bit of luck?

viscous. mucilaginous. gluey.

Another confession: I discover when I telephone call someone "lucky" it'southward unremarkably because I am jealous of them.

It was my condign a minimalist that finally made me come up to this realization.

I one time told a friend he was "lucky" he didn't have these same school loans I did (that drown me alive). But he's not really lucky. He didn't win the lotto. No one handed him $150,000 and said "go to school." He worked a full-time chore and moved home with his parents so he could pay for tuition while in law school. Maybe he was lucky to take the option to alive with his parents? I don't know.

This lucky thing starts to go confusing with too many fine lines.

Of course,I can't deny that certain aspects of my life are, and take been, filled with luck.Like being born in America and free from devastating hardships millions of people around the world still face. Or beingness adopted by two parents who love me and had the means to provide me everything I needed (and having a nativity parent brave enough and generous plenty to put me upwards for adoption). I'm besides incredibly lucky to have survived a vicious car crash that nigh claimed my life when I was 19, and so on. I had no control over these things. I was lucky. I am lucky.

Perhaps it's only applying "lucky" to someone'southward success that bugs me.

Then again, everything is connected.

When kickoff writing this post, I tried to think virtually my own luck. Higher came to mind start and I thought, "I'1000 not "lucky" that I got into higher. I worked my butt off!" Which is true, only I was besides lucky to alive in a place where I had access to a good, public didactics, and I was lucky my family provided me with an surroundings that allowed me to flourish, go to school, etc.

Perchance there is a little bit of luck in everything.Perhaps that explains why non anybody who works hard is successful (like me failing the bar exam the first time, even though I studied hard, or the terminal 18 years of Tabitha's acting career).

Perchance you demand a piffling bit of luck to have the right opportunity or the right moment or the right pair of shoes. I actually don't know.

But my bespeak is:information technology'southward non ALL luck.

And if someone isn't truly lucky -- like win the lotto lucky -- to take whatever it is that they have perhaps use a different expression ;)

And if you are jealous, I've found envy is a sneaky, sneaky monstah.

(*I have permission from the people in these stories to publish them on my blog with names changed and a few skewed details for the sake of privacy).

(**I came beyond this post some years ago. I've echoed and paraphrased some of the authors statements and ideas hither. I also love the insight many of the commentators requite in their comments.)

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Source: https://happyherbivore.com/2014/03/minimalist-rethinking-luck-why-lucky-insulting/

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