Getting Lucky featuring Rebecca Calloway Butcher

     Ah, March, the beginning of spring. It's the month to try your luck and follow rainbows in hopes of finding a pot of gold. Luck can be a lot of things. Aunt Carol winning a bingo game, your favorite team scoring big, finding a hundred dollar bill all on the sidewalk. It can also be things like calling insick and later hearing of an accident along your route to work. So, what is luck?
     My Irish heritage demands I give you some serious thought on luck. While finding a pot of gold would be awesome (after taxes, of course), I don't think rainbows, clover and Leprechauns are the extent of defining luck. I think luck has more to do with intent. How you approach life sets the mood for everything you do.
     If you go to sleep on Sunday night dreading Monday morning, you are setting yourself up to oversleep, get caught in traffic and get fussed at by your boss. On the flipside: if you tell yourself it's going to be a great day today, you might wake up ten minutes before the alarm, catch all green lights when you run to the bank on your lunch break, or get praised by a coworker or supervisor for doing a good job.
     Think of intent as energy. One of the basic scientific laws says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That means if you are negative-putting out negative energy, you'll get back negative energy. The reverse is also true. If you are positive, you'll get back positive energy. Luck is the same thing. If you play the lottery and always think "why do I bother I'm not going to win," then you might as well throw your money in the trash can. If your approach says "I can't win if I don't play so let's give it a shot," you have a much better chance of winning. Now, not everyone can wish their way into winning the lottery. There's just too much negative floating around for that. But you can create your own luck in small accumulative steps.
     You're talking back to me now asking, "How can I create luck?" For starters, smile more often. It makes you happy. Happiness generates positive energy. If you smile at another person, most of the time that person will smile back at you. Step two: be thankful. I'm thankful that I woke up this morning to experience another day. I have a comfortable place to sleep, a job, food to eat, people who love me, a car to go exploring in. All of these things are things to be thankful for, not taken for granted. Step three: make a conscious decision to be happy. Don't let the first little negative thing control the tone of your day. Break a nail, drop something, spill your coffee…these are just little things. It happens. Get over it. Tell yourself, it's going to be a beautiful day. And it will.