Luck

luck noun, verb

noun [U]
1 good things that happen to you by chance, not because of your own efforts or abilities: With (any) luck, we’ll be home before dark. (BrE) With a bit of luck, we’ll finish on time. So far I have had no luck with finding a job. I could hardly believe my luck when he said yes. It was a stroke of luck that we found you. By sheer luck nobody was hurt in the explosion. We wish her luck in her new career. You’re in luck (= lucky)—there’s one ticket left. You’re out of luck. She’s not here. What a piece of luck! The only goal of the match came more by luck than judgement. Finally my luck ran out and they caught me trying to climb the outer wall. She dared not trust to luck that nobody would see her.—see also beginner’s luck
2 chance; the force that causes good or bad things to happen to people fortune: to have good / bad luck I put the loss of the money down to pure bad luck.—see also hard-luck story

verb
luck out (NAmE, informal) to be lucky: I guess I really lucked out when I met her.


"The man who said 'I'd rather be lucky than good' saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck it goes forward and you win. Or maybe it doesn't and you lose."

~Chris Wilton, in Match Point


Luck has always been underestimated by people.

People admit that there is luck, of course. But most people fail to see how luck contributes to the significance of human life.

Hardworking people are often acclaimed. But sadly as Wilton (or actually, Woody Allen) rightly said above, being lucky seems to conquer everything.

Luck implies a deeper human situation, which I gladly found in the Oxford English Dictionary, i.e. chance.

No matter how hard you work, there is always a chance that you will fail disastrously.

It's this grim possibility that people often try to ignore. They imagine that there is a harmony between their virtues and happiness. But sorry, not in this life.

Then should we stop all our hard work, sit there and wait for our luck to come? Any three years old knows the answer.

I believe that the world is fair to the extent that the hardworking fellas get more of what they deserved.

However, having the element of luck in life actually makes it more interesting. We do not lead our lives like completing a sudoku. There is always a chance that there will be two "9" filled within a row to make the whole grid fail.

Or you are otherwise lucky, the ball goes forward and you win.

If life is like a play script and we only work very hard to realise what was written, without chance of otherwise, it's actually pretty doomed, and the worst part is, it's unbearably boring.

I rather believe that there is luck, than fate.