“Why do I Always Have Bad Luck”? (Sometimes It Might Be You)

So you seem to be struggling and angry. That’s fine. We all at some point feel this way. Throw up our hands and go, not fair! I am sick of my bad luck. Often it’s the people who try the hardest that can reach this point. It can be a sign you are a hard worker. You are just having a moment, so to speak. That aside. What exactly is your definition of bad luck? You see we are all, like it or not, having the human experience. We will all lose someone we love, experience sickness, face personal challenges, and then die. Some of us will be born into countries where we watch our children starve to death, or our relatives blown to pieces by bombs. We’d agree this is bad luck. But if you are, well, ‘lucky’ enough to be born into a time and place where you have choices, then luck becomes a perspective. And you are part of what is happening as you are making the choices, for better or worse. Sometimes bad things happen. This is inevitable. Again, we will get sick, there will be accidents, we might die. But the way you respond to them or the perspective you take is up to you. For example, a child loses their father at aged 14. Either that child is unlucky, as they are without a father, or they are extremely lucky, as they had a father. A person loses a limb in an accident. Either they are unlucky, as they live their life without a limb, or they are lucky, as they survived the accident. You get the picture. From a mental health viewpoint, that perspective changes the road ahead. If the person decides they are unlucky they lost their father, and is full of rage at this injustice, they will struggle to find friends, the loneliness might mean they turn to alcohol, end up smashing the windows of a store at night, end up in jail…. if the person decides they are lucky they had a father at all, they might then decide to live a life that honours their father’s memory, and take a very different road. We could go on and on, but you get the picture. Of course if our brain is hooked into cognitive cycles and beliefs, it’s not like we can wake up a different person. It’s a LOT of work to change our thinking, to learn to be honest about how we think and feel, to learn how to master our thinking and slow down enough to see where we are making a choice that determines the road ahead. It is a process, and it takes constant commitment and faith, it takes trying and messing up, it takes being humble. Wisdom and mastery doesn’t fall on our head, we have to earn it. In fact the further we go, the bigger the challenges. So back to the fact we all sometimes throw up our hands. Yes, temper tantrums, frustration, and impatience happen. You can either stay down and give up and blame it on the fates, or you can get up, dust off, and keep heading into the experience that is life. We’d imagine you are the type who will do the latter, or you wouldn’t be here researching and reading this article. Best, HT.

Hi there Ted, so you are posting about this and researching it, and we are wondering why. Does a tiny part of you have a feeling it might be connected somehow? We aren’t here to have an easy perfect life without challenges. If we did, we would never grow at all as people. There is no person on this earth who does not suffer. Who does not lose loved ones, experience sickness. But even with this list you have presented we see many things which we would not attribute to just ‘luck’ but to a combination of things. We affect our risk levels of things happening, we make micro choices which lead to big results (google micro choices), our values and our attitudes affect our choices. For example, the rear ending. If we are distracted because our heads are full of negative thoughts, and we are not in the present moment, we are unable to practise good offensive driving, seeing accidents before they happen and moving out of harms way, like many driving schools teach. You know this. You have driven tired or upset before. Re the sofa ripping when being set up. Have you noticed you are tense in the presence of someone really miserable and complaining? More likely to be tense? If this friend is as negative as you say, there is a higher chance the employee setting up the chance was made tense and uncomfortable, raising his chances of an accident. And if we believe terrible things will happen to us, without consciously realising it we make ‘micro choices’ to ‘prove’ this belief true. We buy products without researching them first, hire people with bad reviews and tell ourselves it will be fine. Choose to work for companies that are unethical, or for people that we meet and don’t feel good around… we ignore our own instincts. We then attribute all to ‘luck’. Not able to accept something inside of us is hellbent on seeking out trouble, so to speak. As for wives leaving him, we really don’t think that would be luck, that is the one we’d be sure of. And bad heart, regardless of family history, we all have a lot of choices to make around health. In summary, sure, sounds like he’s had some bad luck. But also sounds like he’s part of some of this with what you describe as a very negative personality and mindset leading to negative choices. Something to think about. And one more thing… there are many, many people around the world who would see a man who has had a job, had the privilege of falling in love and getting married, and can afford things like motorcycles as one of the luckiest people in the world. #perspective.

Hi there Dominique. Do you want to tell us the exact phrase you are talking about, did you read the article? As that is not at all what the article is about. We understand that when we are entrenched in the idea that the entire world is against us we can become obsessed with ‘gaslighting’ or calling everyone a ‘narcissist’. It’s a coping mechanism, a way to put responsibility ‘out there’ so we can feel safer. We get it. We don’t know your or your issue but we assure you that you are a powerful person who can make changes in your life regardless of what it currently looks like. And that looking at how you are powerful might be scary, but is far more useful in the long run then lashing out at everyone, which is only lonely. As for considering if other people have had it worse, that’s actually proven by quite a big body of research to be useful in raising moods. It’s called ‘downward social comparison’ if you were interested in learning about it. Best, HT.

Hi there Constance. Actually, trauma is common. Very common, sadly. We agree , however, that the world isn’t black and white. Our article is not black and white, did you actually read it? It clearly discusses how trauma happens, but that we are in charge of deciding how we respond to it and how to make a life for ourselves despite trauma. What we see here is a very rigid focus on all the terrible things that have happened to you, you took the time to write it all out in great detail without listing a single good thing. Is this something you do constantly? Do you recount this tale to whoever will listen? We ask this as the brain can become addicted to negative perspective and become rigid in its focus only on bad things, this can be a side effect of trauma that leaves us constantly triggered. This then leaves us a human who deep down believes the only worth that we have is making others feel sorry for us and with a tendency to constantly make choices that leave us in constant suffering. When we have far more worth and far more power than we realise. Have you ever worked with a therapist on any of this? Embraced the power you have as an adult to seek support and heal? Learned how to also recognise what goes right, even if some days it’s just the small things? The problem with a rigid perspective on suffering it is terrifically lonely. Therapy can go a long way in changing this sort of perspective, which can then start to slowly change our decision making process and self esteem. If you had the courage to seek support, we have an article here on how to find free or low cost counselling. http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy