i should be so lucky luck lucky.....

...simple question:

what is luck?

an off topic thread was started, in a forum I moderate in, entitled "what is and luck" came up and I have to say that I was kinda imperssed by the maturity of some of the answers; in particular one that simply read "luck explains the improbable".

I like it because it is simple and it is objective and without any attachment to anything that may bias the response. Of course, there were still the odd replies along the lines of "bad luck is punishment" which goes into a whole different kettle of fish but on the whole, it was quite good overall.

I'm writing this because once again, the bad luck thread kinda goes a long way to show how different people view the world they live in and the way they exist in the world. Another reply was that "bad luck is the reluctance to accept responsiblity" which shows the direction that I'm going for.

Again, as I mentioned before, too many people seem to want something to blame for their misfortunes and luck is the easiest way of removing yourself from blame. Of course, this is dependent of situation of course but there are rarelt any occasions where something you were part of goes wrong and you didn't paly a part in it's undoing. So why the need to blame something intangible and non-existant?
Is it even slightly unhealthy?

We all have choices for every action at every step along whatever path we are walking. There is never any point where you are forced to do anything, nor is there anything that is truely out of your control. Sure bad things can happen that are genuinely out of your hands (i.e car accidents) but these aren't the events that I am talking about. I am talking about life choices and other things related to work and relationships that we actively take part in; the things that define our lives and ourselves.

You might remember me mentioning honesty to one's self in another post and this is part of what I meant. To progress, you have to take responsibilty for your actions and reflect on them and amaned as neccesary. This is what makes humans above animals; we have the ability to be introspectively reflective and then go beyond ourselves to be better next time. If we spend too much time blaming errors on other people or even something that doesn't exist (such as luck) then where is there space for moving on and improving ourselves?