Emerson's Essay Shallow Men Believe In Luck

"In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, - no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, - my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."

Fate works in mysterious ways, everyone makes choices out of their own free will which affects their

Luck is many times considered silly or just part of someone’s imagination, but it can really play a big role in what becomes of an individual. In the first chapter, titled “The Matthew Effect”, we

According to Marian Erickson, “Most of life is choices, and the rest is pure dumb luck.” Real people’s lives depend on this quote everyday, which leads to the outcome of each problem individuals face. In the passages, characterization of the main personas helps one understand the theme. Conflict and symbolism also help lead to the overall idea that life is not always guaranteed to be full of success. The book The Other Wes Moore, the poem “If,” and the informational text “The Art of Resilience” all share a common theme of how choices and luck contribute to the success of life.

Joseph Conrad once said, “It is the mark of an inexperienced man not to believe in luck”. Nailer, the main character of Paolo Bacigalupi’s book Ship Breaker, wasn’t born lucky, he was born a ship breaker. Ship breakers are child and adult laborers who spend their days starving, poor, and working away to take the anything valuable off old ships for the big companies. Throughout Nailer’s life, he has suffered through various unfortunate events. However, with a strong belief of luck and having other superstitions, his life becomes more manageable. In Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi demonstrates that being superstitious and believing in various degrees of luck allows people to more easily feel in control of uncontrollable situations.

Constitutive luck, according to Nagel, refers to “the kind of person you are, where this is not just a question of what you deliberately do, but of your inclinations, capacities, and temperament.” The idea here is that who we are is influenced by many factors, such as our parents or culture, that are out of our control and, if such is true, then who we are is largely a matter of luck. People can be selfish, cowardly, conceited, and so on simply because they were raised as such. These vices, which are seemingly out of our control, condition a person to have certain feelings under certain circumstances. Whether or not we act on our vices

They gained success through hard work and their achievements, which luck had no part in.

Is success earned through hard work or is it pure luck? For Pele, "Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do" (Arrantes 1). In “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, he illustrates his perseverance and hard work towards his love for reading and learning to read in order to be successful in his career as a writer. Through his use of his past experience of learning to read, Alexie demonstrates his intelligence and use of determination in order to create an ethos of a writer to evoke motivation towards his audience.

There are times in life that we attribute good luck to our hard work, dedication or talent but there are some other times when we can say that luck is just a chance that we get. As we can see on the work of this two authors James H. Austin the author of “Four kinds of chance” published in Saturday Review and Robert H. Frank author of “why luck matters much more than you think” published in The Atlantic (May 2016) they show the reader how chances can influence in different ways. After reading their work I consider Robert H Frank article more effectively fulfills his thesis.

Why can't you be successful? Maybe the only reason people are successful is simply because of luck. Benjamin Franklin once stated that diligence is the mother of good luck. While there are factors in our lives that can’t be controlled, ultimately it’s up to the individual to overcome their obstacles. With that being said many of the factors that can not be controlled can expand an individual's success.

Fate and free will are epic subjects in life. When we cannot control something we blame it on fate, but we try to change the way things are with our free will.

Participants in the action, some of them in parts that are minor and seem insignificant, contribute one by one the indispensable stitches which make the pattern, and contribute them not knowing; that is to say, they act when they do not know the truth of the situation in which they act, this truth being known, however, to us who are spectators." (The Brevity of Friar Laurence, 850) The idea that Fortune dictates the course of mankind dates back to ancient times. Those writers of the medieval world incorporated the goddess Fortune into Christianity and made her God's servant, responsible for adding challenges to our lives so that we would see the importance of giving up our tumultuous earthly lives to God. The most influential treatise on the theme of Fate was The Consolation of Philosophy, written by the scholar Boethius (A.D. 475-525). Written while he awaited execution, it is a dialogue between himself and his guide 'Philosophy', who explores with him the true nature of happiness and fate, and leads him to hope and enlightenment. Here is an excerpt from Book IV:

Chance is a very interesting concept. The belief things happen unknowingly and by mere luck. In the play chance is over shadowed by fate, a pre-determined destiny. A prime example of

Ralph Waldo Emerson							I am writing this essay on the beliefs and thoughts of Ralph Waldo Emerson on the subjects of individuality, society, government, technology, and spirituality.

The first century Roman philosopher Seneca said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” A lot of folks have echoed that sentiment over the millennia. Luck favors those who don’t depend upon it. Sure, some things are mostly about luck. Las Vegas comes to mind. But mostly, we must make our own luck by taking advantage of every opportunity we recognize or create.