Lucky

In the space of an hour last Saturday, two things happen. First, I meet a woman whose last name is Lucky, and then I draw my own name out of a basket full of small slips of paper and win a lovely bracelet as a door prize.

What are the odds?

I’ve gone my whole life without meeting someone named Lucky (even if she married into the name), so I don’t know how to figure the odds of that. But when I draw my own name, it’s in the middle of 30 or 40 other pieces of paper. I’m sitting on a stair step, and the basket is higher than my head. There’s no way for me to see what name I’m drawing.

And yet, improbably, I pick my name, soon after meeting Mrs. Lucky.

That’s lucky.

Later that night, after a nice dinner with friends, I drive up the casino to play poker. It’s a slow night, and off in some way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Which may have been the reason why, on a Saturday night, the place was pretty quiet. Still, I had driven all the way up there and might as well stay, so I take a seat at my favorite limit hold ‘em game.

After about an hour, the skinny, odd guy at the other end of the table asks, “What’s your name?”

I tell him.

“Okay, Jennifer. I dare you to walk out there,” he points to the next room – it’s filled with blackjack tables and slot machines – “right now, and put $500 on one hand of blackjack.” He looks at me over the top of his sunglasses. “One hand.”

I laugh and shake my head. Not in this lifetime, I think.

“No, no, there’s not a game outside this poker room that I would bet a single dollar on,” I answer. The whole table is listening, and I’m aware that I’m clearly labeling myself as Not a Real Gambler.

But a poker player is fooling only one person if he claims that poker isn’t really gambling. It’s a game of chance. Still, it’s a game where a player plays against other people and can claim a measurable advantage for himself, over time, by positioning himself as the House against other players. (And, to be fair, of all the house games, blackjack is the one game where a very good player can even the odds between the house and himself. But still.)

I shuffle two stacks of eight red chips, a habit, and look up at him again.

“Listen, maybe if I knew how to play those games – who knows? – I might have a different opinion. But I do know this. They’re house games.” Why play when the odds aren’t in my favor?

Later on, I couldn’t help wondering, can I ever really win big, if I play like that? Not in poker, but in my life? If I only play games where I know I’m safe, where I won’t win much, but I won’t lose much either, where does that leave me?

I’ve had a couple of days now to think about those questions. I’m absolutely sure of my rules about playing other casino games (not going to happen), but what about the other chances I’m not taking? Would I rather absorb the small losses, a little bit at a time (and end up with nothing to show for it – no book, no published articles), than kiss the dice and pray to roll a lucky seven?

If life is a game, why am I not betting on me?

I become almost paralyzed by fear – equal parts fear of failure or of success. Both are scary. But scary is good, when it’s the right thing (yes?), when what you might win is the thing you wanted all along. That’s what I hear, anyway. I’d kind of like to find out for myself, to know if I have what it takes to back up my bluffs.

I think in some things we make our own luck, though certainly not in all, or even most, parts of life. (And there will always be some things that are never worth risking in a bet. A family, love, the faith that others have in you. Those are the essentials.)

But as for the rest of it, for those dreams that would put us over the moon if they came true, it takes work to be ready when everything comes together and luck somehow finds the right address. It’s time to do that work. To draw my own name, again.

So, deal me in.

Tagged as: life, taking chances, the writing life