Imagine, if you would, you have a bag filled with marbles. Half the marbles are black and half the marbles are white. Each time an event happens that has an even chance of outcomes, a marble is pulled from the bag. Black marble and things don’t go your way. White marble and you get the outcome you want. Seems fair, right? But what if you get three white marbles in a row? Now there are more black marbles than there are white marbles in the bag…the odds of you pulling a black marble have increased and the odds of you pulling a white marble have decreased.At some point, you’ll have used up all the white marbles and all that will be left are black ones.
This is my own highly suspect and bizarre interpretation of how ‘luck’ works.
Succinctly, there’s a balance….you have ten good things happen, you’re going to have ten bad things happen. When you tilt the odds in your favor, youre tilting the odds elsewhere against you. Now, you can tilt the odds in your favor…in our marble example you could look in the bag and pull out the white marbles. But, if you do that, you cannot change the fact that the remaining marbles will be the black ones. So, you may be able to get the positive result that you want, when you want, but at some point you’ll have to balance it out by having nothing but black marbles left to draw.
Today I had two happy incidences of good luck. First, I got a check from Wells Fargo saying ‘sorry we opened a credit card account in your name without your permission’. Yay..grocery money for the month. Second, when buying groceries I found remaindered meat that was also buy-one-get-one-free, which meant that the large amount of chicken and fajita fixings I bought was not %50 off, but rather %75 off in the end.
I am now terrified that something truly crappy is waiting in the wings to balance all this out.
On the other hand, this could be the other side of the balance and this is the reaction to any of the hideous bad luck I’ve had lately.
However, I’m a pessimist and pragmatist…so…yeah, I need to keep both eyes open for the next couple days.
“things happen in threes” is another one. I think pretty much like you do, awaiting “the other shoe to drop to balance the cosmic scale”. Granted, my hair is nicer. Happy Festivus!
The cheap chicken carries Salmonella
Bad news: the free-range chickens “free-ranged” over an ancient indian graveyard, and now their meat carries a terrible curse.
Good news: the effects of that curse are indistinguishable from the effects of salmonella, which the chicken meat also carries.
But it comes with a free frozen yogurt, which I call “frogurt”. The frogurt is also cursed.
The bag of marbles does not work in this case. There are people that over the course of their life will have more of one color or the other. It would follow a bell shaped curve type of distribution where the number of people with all white or all black are very few, and most people will be in the middle with approximately an even distribution. There is no way of knowing where you fall in the curve until your life is over and you determine your ranking. I’d suggest you don’t worry about it and celebrate the good luck!
I see it as an open system rather than a closed one: there is only 1 bag of marbles & everyone is dipping into it. Some people get luckier than others.
The slightly less pessimistic interpretation is that luck is more like a coin toss- each event is independent. Three heads or tails in a row does not affect throw number four- it is still a 50/50 shot. The law of large numbers and regression to the mean demonstrate blah blah blah we’re still gonna die, Winning the big one means we die well. I think I’m gonna start drinking now. Oh, wait, I’m at work. Nevermind.
Very interesting post. What if the black and white marbles are balanced, but on a universal scale? I kind of think that’s more likely the case. On a complete picture, there is justice in outcome (even if not in this life), but some guys may get abnormally lucky and others abnormally unlucky.
Yes, it is true that ‘Shit Happens’ a rather universal truth. It is also true that some people just are blessed with more ‘good material’ between their ears.
We have the opportunity to make good decisions, and also bad ones. Some people make more Good Decisions, and consequently their lives are more trouble free. So, this runs a bit counter to the marble theory….. Just sayin’
Perhaps it’s both. Whichever marble you get, only you can decide what you’re going to do with the experience. Two people born into the same bad luck – a family in poverty – but one works his butt off & makes something of himself, while the other does nothing & says, “What’s the use?”
But then there’s another question: Is attitude luck of the draw? Or is it something we have control over?
Commander Zero doesn’t usually take us into philosophical questions!
I mean, you are basically describing the concept of Karma. Under Karma, your Karma balance pays off with good fortune, but lowers your balance. You can earn good Karma by doing good deeds though – things that reduce suffering for others will refill your bag with more white marbles. Just one way to look at the world I guess.
Luck is dirctly influenced by the amount of good information and your level of preparation. A black marble my only have the effect of a slightly grey marble