BEING LUCKY

I spent some of my childhood looking for four-leaf clovers believing they could bring me  good luck. I was familiar with other good-luck symbols like a rainbow, a rabbit's foot and a lady-bug, but none spoke to my Irish soul like the four-leaf clover.  My mother use to say that luck was when preparation met opportunity....that you made your own luck! There certainly is some truth to that, but some things come to us unannounced and by fate, I think. Warren Buffet talks about the "ovarian lottery" and suggests that the luckiest day of our lives is the day we are born. This, of course, can be good luck or bad luck, but I hit the jack-pot being born to two very smart, energetic, and talented people who provided me with everything I needed to be happy and successful in life. Sometimes, luck depends upon the choices we make. I am thinking about Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken." He ends his poem with, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference to me." I sometimes wonder about those "other" roads, and ask myself, "What if?" What if I had married my "first" love? What if I had not had a courageous & adventurous friend who covinced me to go to Africa in the Peace Corps? What if, by chance, I had not met my wonderful husband o a street in Washington, D.C. ? What if I had not had my two wonderful daughters who have provided such joy in my life?  We are constantly making choices and decisions in life that affect our fate and fortune. Hopefully, all our yours will be good ones!