You Lucky B*****d!

This morning, as I drove to work I heard an interview with a guy called Ed Smith. He has just written a book about luck. Just how much of it contributes to our lives but most particularly about sport. 

I hate this man. I hate him with a passion. If he were drowning I would step on his head. The reason for my ire is that this man has stolen my life. He is doing everything I ever wanted to do but somehow seem to be stuck in a dead end job working for an ungrateful management who seem tho think they are doing me a favour of some sort. 

Ed Smith - his name drips disconsolately from my lips, was a Cambridge Graduate (Land Economy no doubt!), became a blue at Cricket and then earned a coin as a professional cricketer even representing England at Test level. He is now an author and has several books to his name. You B*****D! That was supposed to be ME!

Anyway to his book. He claimed in his interview that as a player he didn't believe in luck but since he has retired from the game he has become more of a believer (funny that). He related how certain points in his life have revolved around luck. Well I have news for you Ed, Luck does have little to do with it. IT is strict cause and effect. I played Cricket for many years albeit at a lowly level compared to Mr Smith, but I can honestly say I was not more successful because I was unlucky. I attended a reunion match some years ago and a remark was made after the game that my luck hadn't changed. I was still getting a lot of dropped catches off my bowling. I reflected that it was not luck that provided me with a team of butter fingered eejits for comrades and it was most certainly not unlucky that I had bowled in the cafeteria style (There you are batsman - help yourself!) all day. The only lucky thing in sport is the genes you are given and even that isn't really lucky it is bloody natural selection. Once upon a time I am sure these blokes would have been the best hunters or gatherers or something. Or maybe they wouldn't and the ability to slap leather with willow is in fact a genetic mutation we just haven't worked out how to get rid of yet. Luck my arse

To go forward with your life assuming you will be lucky is to be optimistic. As I have pointed out before there is apparently evidence that optimists really do quite well in life. However to believe that you had no say in events or there was no control being exerted over these events they were just "lucky" is the talk of a loser. Losers can be defined as people who say "well it wasn't my fault..." never taking responsibility for their actions. The truth is if you examine your actions critically you can always come to a point where you had a decision to make and you jumped the wrong way. I am not unlucky in life I am just a maker of poor decisions, not all just some fundamental ones. By and large I have the life I have by my own decisions. It is affected by the opinions of others I grant you but I chose to do this life. And it really pisses me off! 

Anyway back to Ed Smith. Don't buy the book. In fact pass the shop. Take Amazon off your favourites list. In fact I would take out a fatwa on the fella if I didn't think it would actually improve his sales (right Salman Rushdie?). You mustn't buy this book because he is stealing my money. The money i would be earning if he hadn't stolen my life!

Any way judge for yourself here is the man him self