After a long, brutal summer, Boston felt like a much-needed clean slate. After all, I was moving into the dorm I wanted with my best friends, taking classes I was actually interested in, and finally free to live my life.
It felt right, but I’m not that lucky.
Instead of landing in Boston and starting the next chapter of my life, I began September by sitting in an emergency room. My hands clutched a to-go mug with both a fragment of my broken tooth and the last pathetic sliver of my will to live swimming inside. I was thousands of miles away from home, had no idea how I would pay for a dental emergency that my Emerson insurance (naturally) didn’t cover, and completely terrified of being on my own again. It was the best “Welcome Home” present anyone could ever ask for.
Unfortunately, my bad luck didn’t just snowball—it formed an avalanche. For several days, my nose bled constantly, turning my dorm sink into a horror movie scene and making me late for class almost every morning. Then, just when I started feeling confident in my journalistic abilities, a group of classmates publicly slammed my capabilities as an editor in front of me by declaring me untrustworthy. Despite always greeting my professors before and after class, they still can’t seem to grasp my name—even a month into the semester. And when I tried to buy the cute boots I’ve had my eye on for weeks, they arrived in the wrong size. The list, of course, goes on.
As I reeled from these unfortunate last few weeks, and as I scrubbed bird poop off one of my favorite and most difficult-to-wash shirts after an ill-fated walk in the Common, everything became clear. Luck, and especially bad luck, is unequivocally real, and I’m living proof that it’s not the devil we think it is.
Many approach the concept of luck with skepticism. Truth be told, bad luck doesn’t make much sense; that’s the point. It’s supposed to perplex us, holding our better judgement hostage as we struggle with the knowledge that this hurricane-force sequence of unfortunate events is beyond our control—and we can’t do anything to stop it.
According to psychologist Richard Wiseman’s decade-long research on luck, this phenomenon presents a paradox, as luck is both inexplicable and completely in our control. While “lucky” and “unlucky” people exist, their realities rely on their mindsets.
“When setbacks strike,” Wiseman observes, “unlucky people see confirmation that the odds are against them, while lucky people view challenges as stepping stones to future success.”
Luck, therefore, is not about the experiences it produces, but rather about how these circumstances change depending on ability to overcome adversity. Though this overly optimistic view doesn’t sound like the whole story—there are certain experiences in life that many find hard to decipher using logic. Logic doesn’t account for ghosts from a distant past suddenly coming back to life just when one has decided to move on, or for trips mysteriously being cancelled after weeks of careful planning. It would be easier to believe that one is cursed by the gods, and the only cure is repentance.
As a way to get some answers—and hopefully exorcise some demons—I turned to psychics. As luck would have it, out of all the psychics I called—I called almost every one in Boston—almost none of them wanted to talk, nor were they very receptive to the idea of discussing the idea of chronic bad luck. It almost felt like I scared them with my questions, or that they somehow sensed my presence as a disturbance through the phone.
I took this, as I do most things nowadays, as a bad omen. One compassionate psychic, probably sensing my overwhelming desperation and misfortune, took pity and offered me a warning. Looking up from her crystal ball, she advised me that seeking answers and cures for my luck isn’t enough. According to her, while psychics and tarot readers can provide clarity, there is no quick fix for unluckiness. Manipulation, in the spiritual world and in society, is everywhere. Outside forces affect us that we can’t explain—sometimes in supportive ways, but also in ways that harm us.
However, luck isn’t the sole dictator of our lives; Wiseman is right, it’s our choices that count in the end. The magical elixir I was hoping she could sell me to cure all bad luck ailments lies, disappointingly and anticlimactically, in my own actions.
I take precautions. I don’t walk under ladders, or break mirrors, or open umbrellas indoors. I throw spilled salt over my shoulder, and knock on wood, and wish on every eyelash that falls on my cheek to give me strength. Bad things continue to happen, and they won’t stop no matter how hard we cross our fingers. Luck is a natural outside force, and while we can try our best to take control, it still won’t be purely logical or kismet; it’s just life.
Luck is my childhood dog—whom I loved more than anything in this world—passing away three days before I moved back to college halfway across the world. Luck is the unexpected joy that I got to say goodbye to my most loyal companion due to a lack of earlier flights from Bolivia to Boston. If we can take our luck as it comes, then we can give ourselves the chance to adapt to it and continue on amid chaos.
So I use my bad luck as a crutch, and it helps me move forward.
