"Some guys have all the luck...some guys have all the pain", so says Rod Stewart in his song entitled the same. Why is it that some people do seem luckier than others? Why is it that some of those "nice guys" really do seem to finish last? Karma? Destiny? Luck? Believe it or not, feeling and thinking yourself "lucky" at work or elsewhere--feeling blessed with good fortune--is a predictor of your level of success and joy in life.
In the 1990's Professor Richard Wiseman of University, of Hertfordshire, England, was so intrigued about this subject that he set out on a "lucky" expedition of his own. Dr. Wiseman placed advertisements in newspapers asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact him. Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for his research and, over the years, he interviewed them, monitored their lives and had them take part in experiments.
Dr. Wiseman's results reveal that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad fortune. It's the 'ole self-fulfilling prophecy all over again!
When it comes to, for example, the case of seemingly chance opportunities, Dr. Wiseman determined that lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not. Are these opportunities available to all people? Is it merely a matter of honing one's ability to observe and act on opportunities, or is there really some "magical" aura around some and not others?
To examine these questions further Dr. Wiseman gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and report how many photographs were inside. He secretly placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying, "Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250." This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. Another large message also appeared in the newspaper, revealing the exact number of photographs. You guessed it...the people who missed the first message also missed the second!
Resources for
No comments:
Post a Comment