Luck and what we make of it

It was a seemingly ordinary day. Whatever ‘ordinary’ may be defined as. Because, although he had everything perfectly planned to the minute the night before, the next morning everything capsized. It took him seven snoozed alarms to finally crawl out of bed. There was no milk in the fridge for his breakfast, and when he reached the bus stop, he had to wait half an hour in the scorching heat, as there was an error in the schedule.

When he eventually reached his appointment location about an hour later, the person he was supposed to meet was herself running late due to an unprecedented occurrence (health-related). He could only wait. For another half hour. In the developing heatwave.

The day only slightly improved after the meeting (set to last for 15 minutes but turned into a 2-hour visit) ended and he rushed to see his girl. Lunch together appeared to alleviate things.

They even bought a lucky bamboo together, in the hope that their fortune would change hereafter.

There was a spare penny after the payment, which he decided to pass on.

During the evening, he rushed to the supermarket before heading home for some urgent work. The cash in his wallet was one penny short of the bill he had to pay.

The penny from the bamboo.

His eye twitched as he counted the coins.

Luck, they say, is something you make. But is it so? Is it the choices we make or the circumstances that occur? And how much do we impact everything around us in the end?

He sulked home, hoping the lucky bamboo would do a better job as of tomorrow.

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Whisper it Seven

Seven is a special number. It is considered lucky because we have an affinity for it: most people consider seven their favourite number or choose it when asked to pick a number between one and ten.

Seven is prevalent in our daily lives too: seven days in a week, seven continents, seven oceans, seven vertebrae in the neck, seven colours in a rainbow, seven wonders of the ancient world, seven deadly sins. In fact, some researchers argue that human memory works best if it remembers up to seven items.

Seven also features strongly in the religions of the world: in the creation story of the Bible, God made the world in six days and rested on the seven, thus scholars believe it represents perfection or completeness. In Judaism, there are seven heavens. In the Islam’s holy book, the Koran, Muslims making the pilgrimage to Mecca walk around the Kaaba seven times. In Chinese culture, seven represents Yin and Yang combined with the Five Elements (water, fire, earth, wood and metal), while in Confucianism this combination is believed to represent harmony.

Seven is, therefore, an important number and most often a lucky one.

Seven years pass by in a flash.

I have written a lot during these seven years (794 posts on this blog) and a lot has happened. It is enough time to reflect, to grow, to mature, to experience new things, to change the way you react to situations, to learn how to deal with life especially when things don’t come the way you plan or hoped they would. It is time that allows you to become stronger and more resilient. And one way of doing this – for me – is through writing, right here. By making my own experiences and observations into fictional stories. By writing motivational stories that I would really like someone else to tell me. By drawing optimism and positivity from the words that fill a page on a screen.

Seven years may be many or few, depending on how you look at it. But they are part of what makes us who we are and a chance to reflect on where we are, according to where we want to be.

So here’s to many more, with the wish to never run dry of inspiration and creativity!

Cat on fire

She sat on the balcony every morning among the plants breathing in the morning dew and fresh air. It felt nice being outdoors, even if this was on the third floor of a city-centre apartment. This was her ‘outside’.

The days passed calmly, as they do for an indoor cat.

But there was one day when something extraordinary happened.

Her housemates left early in the morning to “run errands”, as they told her. They reassured her they would be back soon as they had left their food baking in that square thing in the kitchen that heated up real fast and they called an ‘oven’.

It was hot that day. She realised it, as there was no fresh air, not even in the shade provided by the plants.

And all of a sudden, it happened.

Black smoke began filling up the house and causing an increasingly suffocating atmosphere.

She found it hard to breathe and snuck further behind the pots of the leafiest of plants. It didn’t work much, as the smoke intensified and there was a pungent smell that hurt her nostrils.

After a while, she heard commotion, but it wasn’t from inside the house. Her housemates had not yet returned.

And then, the sirens. Loud and shrieking, piercing her ears.

The door breaking open and five tall men, dressed heavily with helmets and bearing a long rubber hose that began to shoot out water. Voices shouting at all tones all at once, people moving in and out of the house, staring at her hiding behind the pots.

The smoke dispersed but the smell remained. She tried to go into the house to see who these people were and what happened, and that was when her housemates arrived and she could hear their voices break with agony.

One of them picked her up and clenched her in her arms. She said it was to reassure her that everything was all right and she was grateful nothing had happened to her. But the black cat knew that the hug served more as a comfort for her housemate, to loosen the tension and calm her nerves.

She had survived a fire.

To her housemates, she was the luckiest cat alive.

But to her, they were the lucky ones.

The sound of gloom

There was a poor person in the metro the other day playing a famous song on his guitar. He was dressed decently. Wasn’t begging really. His voice was imbued with feeling. He sounded almost professional. He sang from the heart and that was evident. It made you want to give him something. Some change to show your appreciation for the way he was striving to make a living.

Perhaps he could have searched for a ‘regular’ job. But everyone knows these are hard to find in a country where ‘crisis’ has become an everyday term.

At least he was giving melody to a train ride. And you could see the passengers actually stop looking at their phones for a minute and letting their mind wander at his tune.

You were almost mesmerised to give him spare change. Coins whose possession to you may not have made a difference. Perhaps it was the cost of your daily cup of coffee. But to him it was a measure of appreciation. Of the fact that there were people out there who liked what he offered and who were willing to grant a helping hand.

There are many people who leave aside their dignity and in their despair decided to ask strangers for help. There are the ones who feel outcast from society. Whom we look at demeaningly and most often choose simply to ignore. There are the ones who cause controversial discussions of whether they are worth our pity or our ignorance, of whether they are choosing the easy road of begging instead of searching for a ‘real job’.

Everyone we meet carries their own story, their own burdens, their own heavy loads. But it is people like these that make you realise all that you have and how little you appreciate how lucky you in fact are. Because what you perceive as obvious and ‘normal’ is not so for many others.

Those small things

There’s a saying that “the best things in life aren’t things”. Sometimes, they aren’t. But sometimes it is remarkable how the smallest of things can make you feel all warm inside, and genuinely happy.

We live in a world of plenty – at least the lucky Western part of the globe – that we often forget what it means to have certain things. Things that we often take for granted, like clean water, clean sheets, and a house full of loved ones to return to each day.

And sometimes it doesn’t take much to make someone smile. All you need is the knowledge that you have people who love you stand by you, ready to support you no matter what.

All it takes is for you to see your work published, instantly filling you with the gratification that you are doing something worthwhile. And that work is exactly what enables you to buy something useful – like a new tablet you’ve so longed for – that makes you beam up like a lightsaber at the very sight of the screen turning on, and overwhelming you with a warm feeling of satisfaction and joy.

It is the things like entering a room and having a dog or cat run up to you with eyes gleaming and a tail wagging with joy. It is sitting on the couch rolled up in a blanket watching a movie with someone you love. It’s playing board games on a rainy afternoon with the fire crackling. It’s receiving an unexpected (but very welcome) present.

So I guess, most of the times it is the smallest of things that make life matter. After all, that is the point of living a life of purpose, rather than one of material goods. And it is the very difference between living a life and merely surviving it.

Fortuitous Dusting

Emma decided it was about time to dust the old library. It was her Great Aunt’s prided possession and she too valued it dearly. Emma loved this house. Her favourite childhood pastime was treasure hunts there. And now that she had inherited it, she secretly hoped that her Aunt had left her just one last hunt to indulge in.

It had been three weeks since she had last stepped in there. Life continued as normal outside its huge wooden-carved windows; birds were singing an ode to the sun, whose rays illuminated every corner of the giant room.  Dust had gained possession of almost every surface. But Emma was determined to put an end to the reign of this uninvited guest.

As she thoroughly dusted out each shelf, she recalled the wonderful stories that lay hidden within each book, resurrecting their images and characters, and she imagined her Aunt watching over her and smiling.

The top shelves extending to the ceiling were harder to reach. Emma brought a chair and climbed up to continue her mission. There was her favourite book! What memories that enclosed… Suddenly she heard a crack, and before she identified where it came from, the chair’s back leg broke off and Emma fell with a thump, with the book landing on her head, like a cherry on a pie. As she scrambled to get up, she noticed a small gold key protruding from the pages of the book. She looked up bewildered, and made out the shadow of a small door where the book had been on the shelf. Was this the last treasure hunt she was yearning for? She got up immediately with excitement rushing through her veins and opened the little vault. Inside was a crimson notebook. Her Aunt’s diary, describing her thoughts, feelings and experiences. It was exactly what she needed – a lucky accident that would bring her Aunt closer to her again. Just when she needed her most, she always found a way to reappear…

332 words for this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge. The prompt was to use the word lucky:

LUCKY (adjective)

1: having good luck

2: happening by chance : fortuitous

3: producing or resulting in good by chance : favorable