Making Your Own Good Fortune

The Daily Stoic for May 24th. “Making Your Own Good Fortune”.

“You say, good fortune used to meet you at every corner. But the fortunate person is the one who gives themselves a good fortune. And good fortunes are a well-tuned soul, good impulses and good actions.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.36

My grandpa used to say: “The best lottery is hard work“. He was a sailor and a working man. Through its history, mankind has coined variations of that same idea, in every aspect of our lives. From art to work to business to family to relationships.

Pablo Picasso, a compatriot of mine, famously said:

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”

Making Your Own Good Fortune

I can confirm the words of Picasso are true, at least in my experience. To record “Nueve Días De Invierno”, I locked myself during nine days at my apartment. During those nine days, I played the piano incessantly, recording everything.

Some of that stuff, especially the one created during the first days, was kind of mediocre. However, eventually, after hours and hours of playing with musical sketches, improvising, and polishing ideas, good songs started to appear. From the probably more than 100 hours of recorded material, I trimmed it down to 35 minutes I was satisfied with.

I believe this is universally true. Making the right choices, doing the right things and working hard constitute the formula for being lucky. Especially for people that are not very fortunate in that department, like me.

My grandpa died of cancer at a very early age, when I was just a small boy. We cannot change these blows of fate, but we can do our best to change the ones we have the ability to change.

Conclusion

Today’s Daily Stoic, “Making Your Own Good Fortune”, discusses a topic I completely agree with. Luck is a matter of making the right choices, doing the right things and working hard. The rest is not only out of our control, but too unlikely to put our lives in its hands.