Comment on Systematic Lucky Breaks

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 08:32:17 GMT

I'm confused as to why people are voting it up.

Speaking for myself: It is a simple actionable advice, and although it seems obvious in hindsight, people like me don't follow it automatically.

I am not sure, maybe some people are doing this automatically, but for me it is not a usual way of thinking to 1) list the good things in my life, 2) find the situations that created them, and 3) try to replicate those situations. Sometimes, very rarely, I do the first part, and maybe with one very specific situation I tried the second and the third parts. Okay, the third part may be difficult, if the situation was exceptional. But the first two parts you can do any moment you have five minutes of free time.

The discussion moved to specific topics (martial arts), because I gave a specific example of my life and asked for ideas how to apply this advice. (The further discussion about martial arts is going away from the original topic.) I think it would be nice if other people who upvoted would give specific examples from their lives that the article resonated with (assuming they upvoted for similar reasons).

I'm not sure how a "game night" qualifies as an "unexpected positive event". Surely game makers are aware that games are positive experiences for people...

For a person who is not an organizer and not a part of regularly-meeting community, the unexpected thing could be that they were invited. Imagine that you were invited to a game night, and you liked it. But for whatever reasons you don't get invited again (for example the original organizers stopped doing it). Most people would just say: "oh, it was so good, too bad it doesn't happen anymore". But the recommended reaction would be to organize another game yourself (or manipulate someone else to do so).

Another unexpected aspect could be that you go to the game night, and you just expect to spend a few nice hours without further consequences. But what may really happen is that you find good friends who later give you a lot of value even outside of the gaming context. In that case, most people would just say: "I was lucky to find this friend". But the recommended reaction would be to re-classify game night from "amusement" category to "opportunity to meet good friends" category.

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