Do You Feel Lucky?

Greetings from the 12th Floor. A temperate August, with nighttime temps in the 50s. August attire is now jeans and a hoodie. I’m trying to enjoy this weather without worrying how cold it’s going to be in February. Maybe we won’t have a stretch of arctic temps this year, if we’re lucky.

I’ve had luck on my mind lately.

Are you lucky? I am. That’s a weird thing to say aloud. It sounds like I’m bragging, but I’m not. It’s a mindset, and I’m learning to lean into it.

I have always been lucky with jobs and with money. I’ve never been rich, but I’ve never been desperately poor, either. When I was younger, there were long stretches when I had less than $10 in the bank the day before payday, but still…my bills were paid, I had food in the fridge, and I had that $10. Even when the wind was at the door, something came along to shore up the cracks - an unexpected refund, an under the table cash job. Again, never enough money to change my life, but enough to keep the lights on and my face fed.

Even though I’ve hated some of my jobs, I still consider myself lucky there too. I haven’t gotten every job I’ve wanted, but when I’ve needed a job - when unemployment payments were about to run out, when an abusive situation became untenable, when I was truly ready to go - I have found myself in the right place at the right time, with a good opportunity on the hook.

I can’t explain it - yes, I have talent and experience and a good work ethic, but I know people who have more of both and yet don’t have the same kind of luck. I’ve known people who work hard and sacrifice small pleasures, but still end up in the red at the end of the month, forced to choose which bills to pay. But me? When the shit hits the fan, I am confident I will always have $10 and a job offer.

I’ve always considered myself lucky with my health, too. I’ve never been an athlete but I’ve never had any health issue more serious than a minor broken bone. Never had a hospital stay, no major surgeries. Until last year, when I found out I had colon cancer.

And yet that was lucky too. I powered through three (3!) colonoscopies in 2024 and three biopsies, and each time, the results came back negative for cancer. Nonetheless, after consulting with two doctors, I decided to have surgery to remove the little excess hunk of internal organ that survived three prunings, and this time, the post-surgery biopsy found stage one cancer. Whatever had been growing on the outside of the colon had not yet developed into cancer, and the part that was cancerous had - fortunately - not entered the blood stream.

My first question was whether they chopped up the intestine like a salami or turned it inside out like a sock. I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. My second question was about the long-term term prognosis for cancer of this type. My surgeon gave me a fairly generic baseline, then admitted that she couldn’t be more specific because “we never see cancer this early.”

Lucky.

My level of luck is moderate - high enough that I do not go hungry or suffer a serious illness, but not so high that I can get complacent. And that’s ok. Philosophically, I strive towards contentment. I don’t need to be deliriously happy all the time, but I would like not to be too sad too often.

There are areas where I have never considered myself lucky, or have found that I have anti-luck. Romance is one. My writing is another. It has seemed that no matter how hard I work, how much I study, or how often I roll the dice, the numbers never quite add up. However, it might be time to reconsider that.

As luck would have it, I recently read Gay Hendricks’ book, Conscious Luck, an offshoot of his series of books on Conscious Living. In essence, Conscious Living focuses on our ability to control our lives by making active choices on how we act, react, feel, and spend our time. The books focus on self-knowledge, total honesty, integrity, and responsibility, and consciously choosing the life we lead.

I’ve read a few of Hendricks’ books and consider his advice 80 percent useful, 20 percent metaphysical hocus-pocus. No, I don’t believe the universe is conspiring to give me success. However, I do believe that we create the lives we feel we deserve. I believe that we can expand our happiness and fulfillment with a creative mindset, self-knowledge and integrity, and good emotional habits.

Conscious Luck frames luck as a mindset, i.e. if you believe you are lucky, you will be. If you look at failures and setbacks as opportunities - or avoided mistakes - you will be less likely to fall into a pattern of self-doubt and defeatism. If you believe you are lucky, you may be more likely to take chances, seek opportunities, introduce yourself to a mentor or investor, or simply put yourself out into the world where people can find you.

I bought the book last year, but just got around to reading it, and I’m glad I put it off, because I was primed for what Hendricks had to say, as I’ve been feeling more lucky lately, particularly around my writing.

I wrote earlier about attending Jane Friedman’s Business of Writing workshop and her talk on AI in the creative space. My main purpose in attending both was meeting other writers who were making it happen. Not people who “want” to write but never do, or writers who think they don’t need an editor, but those aiming to be their best possible creative self and who believe they should be rewarded for it.

It was after the AI talk that I threw caution to the wind and asked if anyone would like to keep in touch. I passed around a notepad and pen, collected a dozen names and email addresses, and my networking group was born. I didn’t have great expectations, but over the past weeks, we have gelled as a group, set goals, shared information and know-how, and cheered each other’s progress. One of the writers in the group also organizes the annual Manor Mill Writer’s Retreat, and has asked me to join two panel discussions, my first speaking opportunities in almost ten years and my first as a writer, not an editor or comic nerd.

If I had read Conscious Luck last year, I probably would have dismissed it as power-of-positive-thinking feel-goodery. And it is. But having unknowingly acted out some of the concepts - and experienced a small but appreciated benefit - I’m more open to its advice.

I’m still not convinced the universe is conspiring in my favor, but if happiness is in my own hands, why not my luck? And if I’m lucky in health and (relative) wealth, why not with my creative work as well? Why not take the chance, seek the opportunity, introduce myself, make the request, and let the world know where it can find me?

There’s no reason not to.

Also in this letter:

• Posts from July 2025

• WIP News

• A Parting Song

Monthly Posts
This month, I introduced you to the artists who created the three portraits gracing various spots on my website and socials, and looked back on my 8-year run as a DIY publisher. I took an actual get-on-an-airplane vacation. Writers won a small victory against a Gen AI developer who pirated their work to train its LLM. On the writing front, I threw around some ideas about the relationship plot, a third layer of text existing between the physical story and the internal character arc present in most novels.

Me Me Me
Summer Recess
Writers: 1, AI: 4.981e+307
Near and Far
The Un-Self Publisher

WIP News
Progress was a bit slow this month, given work demands and my brief getaway, but work continues. I got stuck in a chapter when it started feeling excruciatingly dull, which is a good signal that something is awry. I think I’ve fixed it, but at minimum, the revision is an improvement on the draft. Still aiming for an end of year completion. I wish I weren’t such a slow writer, but I am what I am.

A Parting Song
The past few weeks were tough on the writing. Day job, family get-togethers, a house that needs attention, friends who’d like to see me from time to time, the needs of daily living. When demands intersect, there’s only so much time left for creative work. September will be better.

No matter how hard I try, can’t be everywhere all the time…

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