By Emily Umbdenstock
May the winds of fortune sail you,
May you sail a gentle sea.
May it always be the other guy
Who says this drink’s on me.
-Irish Blessing
Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, my fellow New Canaanites! With March 17th just days away, St. Patrick’s Day is fast-approaching. And while only a quarter of my ancestors hailed from Ireland, every year, on this holiday, I am unequivocally one hundred percent Irish. For me, St. Patrick’s Day is less about the history and more about the celebration. For better or worse, St. Paddy’s is presently more about parades, libations and the color green than it is the history of the man himself. Nevertheless, I’m all about it. Come Sunday, I will be dressed head to toe in the shade of four-leaf clovers serving my children Lucky Charms for breakfast and checking our homemade traps for leprechauns. My spirits will be elevated in full Irish glory as I nibble on gold chocolate coins while listening to tartan-clad men play the bagpipes and watching little girls in traditional dresses stepdance their way down Fifth Avenue. And, neighbors, I will be loving every single second of it!
In the meantime, however, as St. Patrick’s Day draws near, I have found myself thinking a lot about the overall concept of luck and what, exactly, it means to be lucky. The Oxford Dictionary defines luck as “chance considered as a force that causes good or bad things to happen.” Personally, I believe that there is a lot more to good luck than special forces and have always subscribed to the words of The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, himself; When it comes to luck, you make your own.
Most people have a tendency to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, good fortune that magically descends upon you from some unknown enchanted source. In actuality, however, true jubilation and prosperity are derived from a much less mysterious origin. Ultimately, what we do with our life is our own responsibility, and good luck is most often the result of unrelenting personal effort. There is no secret, no special loophole; it’s simply discipline. You fight for it, strive for it…heck, you insist upon it. Good luck is a result of relentless participation…an awareness of the opportunities around you and the wherewithal to take advantage of them. Anyone can make their own luck if they stay at it long enough; it’s simple a game of numbers. Essentially, hard work puts you right where good luck can find you.
I love the word Serendipity…smart, active luck…seeing something in the unexpected and connecting the dots. Now, the unexpected can often be scary; a wrench in life’s mapped out plan. However, if we can learn to embrace the unexpected rather than fear it, we can create an incredibly powerful force in our own lives. There are countless scientific breakthroughs throughout history that have emerged as the result of accidents; simple “mistakes” that have resulted in ground breaking discoveries. Penicillin, X-rays, Velcro, even Viagra, were all, to some extent, the result of blunders or miscalculations. However, happy accidents aren’t exclusive to revolutionary inventions. A cup of spilled coffee can be the start of a lifelong romance, and a disastrous interview can open up a door to a dream job…luck really lies in the eye of the beholder.
Now while I’ve never won the lottery and my life can often be described as a comedy of errors, I consider myself to be a very lucky person. Have I endured hard things? You bet. Have I experienced times in my life that have been extremely difficult? Absolutely. But…I never give up…some of my greatest blessings are the result of life straying from my master plan. And when I find myself feeling down and out, I try my best to appreciate are there other errorsall of the positive things surrounding me and do my best to find alternative routes when life throws obstacles my way. We are all so lucky, friends…we just need to open our eyes and see it.
Now I will leave you with these final Irish well-wishes: May your troubles be less and your blessings be more and nothing but happiness come through your door! Some people are just lucky…it’s high time you make yourself one of them. After all, we may not have it all together, but together we certainly have it all! Happy St. Patrick’s Day, New Canaan!
Emily Umbdenstock received her BA in from Georgetown and her MA in Health and Behavior Studies from Columbia University Teachers College. When she isn’t “momming” her three children, she works as a freelance copy editor and an essay editor for college applications. A New Jersey native, Emily relocated to New Canaan in June.
