Madness or method?

Frano Selak was probably the luckiest person in history. He survived a train crash, three car accidents, and two bus collisions. He was blown out of a plane, but managed to land in a haystack. After all that, he won the lottery.¹

If Selak had a secret to all this good luck, he kept it to himself. But more and more people think they can get the same results just by changing the way they think.

A new trend, known as "Lucky Girl Syndrome", has swept TikTok. Influencers tell their millions of followers that they can achieve their goals just by believing that everything works out for them.

Although we are used to thinking of ourselves as lucky or unlucky people, people do not generally agree on what luck really means.

Some describe it as "probabilityHow likely something is to happen. The analysis of probability is called statistics. taken personally". They say luck does not really exist; it is just something we invent to give some order to events that happen randomly to us.

Others say luck describes something real: good things that people have not earned or worked for. People who were born smart or inherited lots of money clearly have something others do not, and we can call this "luck".

Human beings have always tried to control their own luck. Certain objects, like horseshoes and four-leaved clovers, are talismansObjects that are believed to bring good luck. that are thought to bring good luck.

Some cultures avoid particular numbers that are thought to be unlucky, like the number 13 in the West, or four in China.

So the idea that we can make ourselves lucky is a very appealing one. And some experts believe it also has psychological benefits.

Thinking we are lucky can help us perform better in exams and interviews, and give us the confidence we need to take leaps into the unknown.

For one study, researchers told a group of students to putt a golf ball into a hole. Half of the students were told that their ball was lucky. The students who were told this were better than the ones who were told they were using a normal ball.

But others say this is bad for our mental health. They say when we believe we can control our own luck, then we also feel guilty when unlucky things happen. If we had just thought more positively, we worry, things could have been different.

Yes: There is no truth in the idea that some people are "lucky" and others are not. Anyone who tells themselves or others that they are especially lucky is living a lie.

No: The results speak for themselves: people who believe they are lucky have happier and more successful lives. There must be more to it than mere delusion.

Or... People can make their lives a little bit better with positive thinking: even if it begins as a delusion, it soon comes true. But it has a cost: they then have to take responsibility for bad things that are actually beyond their control.