Luck, Bias & Life

Certain small moments do play a crucial role in determining one’s future.And how important the right timing and luck has to be for things to happen in a certain way. One can give his/her entire effort to a cause and yet fail due to a mishap not caused by him. Finding/landing on the sweet spot where opportunity & effort coincide is pretty much based on luck. It’s something that’s out of our control yet ends up being a huge decider of the outcome.

Just assume if Covid had happened an year later or before , it could have had a completely different experience on our lives.Even in my case, had I graduated in 2021 or 2023 I could see myself living a completely different life with different experiences.Most of the memorable experiences you’ve had in your life could have easily gone wrong because of luck. The stars did align for that particular moment to happen.

But it’s not entirely luck. The point here is that sometimes our lives are governed by luck although most of the other times it is our effort that governs .A reasonable way to beat luck is that one needs to keep trying & taking chances in life.In the long run, you make your own luck — good, bad, or indifferent.

Let’s talk about biases now. We are all biased in some way knowingly or unknowingly. Some are based on previous experience or based on our notions/beliefs. But I still believe in some cases biases need to be believed and trying to be a rebel is a futile exercise. In these cases the status quo remains unchanged because the bias have more or less set in as a reality.

On the other hand some biases need to be challenged and trying out new approaches can be beneficial.These biases,if unchecked only solidify with time. One valid way to deal with it is to introspect and question your decision making process on anything and why anyone else trying out the same hasn’t resulted in a different outcome.

Biases can be formed by being around like-minded people. So you hardly get to know if your assumption is wrong or right because everyone around you is thinking along the same lines.

As the famous saying goes :

“If you have a hammer all you see is a nail”

Speaking of biases, here’s my bias on life.

Dedicating your entire life to a single purpose doesn’t fit in well with me honestly. It just doesn’t seem worth it. We know about the 10000-hour rule to achieve brilliance in anything, that rule advocates for consistency , but my view is that its not necessary to put in the hours in the same setup and in the same stretch , rather trying it in different circumstances would only solidify the skill (and even nurture other ones alongside ?)

The whole point of continuing to live is to be able to experience things you previously haven’t experienced. Without the element of unpredictability, it all becomes a repetitive cycle.

If your path is drawn out and decided in advance it’s probably going to come back and haunt you somewhere down the line .