What Is Luck?

Answer:

Luck or fortuity is good or bad fortune in life caused by accident or chance, and attributed by some to reasons of faith or superstition, which happens beyond a person's control.

The term "luck" is pervasive in common speech. There are at least two senses people usually mean when they use the term, the proscriptive sense and the descriptive sense. In the proscriptive sense, luck is the supernatural and deterministic concept that there is a force which proscribes that certain events occur very much the way the laws of physics will proscribe that certain events occur. It is the proscriptive sense that people mean when they state that they "do not believe in luck." In the descriptive sense, luck is merely a descriptive name we give to events after they occur which we find to be fortuitous.

Cultural views of luck vary from perceiving luck as a matter of random chance to attributing to luck explanations of faith or superstition. For example, the Romans believed in the embodiment of luck as the goddess Fortuna, while the atheist and philosopher Daniel Dennett believes that "luck is mere luck" rather than a property of a person or thing.

"All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck — who keeps right on going — is the man who is there when the good luck comes — and is ready to receive it," said Robert Collier.

Lucky symbols have widespread global appeal and are represented by human, animal, botanical and inanimate objects. They are always meaning a form of superstition.