Birthday Luck

I had been fitfully and uncomfortably sleeping, dreaming of a small dog licking my leg and stealing my snack. I awoke to find an escaped boxer with a cute face avoiding my eyes and licking her lips. Once the flight attendant found her rightful owner, who was not nearly as embarrassed as she should have been, I reassess my situation.

I’m still more than an hour behind schedule and said to be losing even more ground on account of intense headwinds. I’m still scrunched into a long metal tube with the seat-back in front of me compressing my kneecaps into my hips while hurtling cross-country, still several hours from arrival home in San Diego. I’m tired from lots of planes and being away from home for too long. I’m not in the most conducive spot I can imagine for counting my blessings.

But count them I shall, as part of this birthday reflection.  “Birthday luck” describes a nuclear explosion of luck that is supposed to happen inside you on that day, giving you the ability to do anything. I don’t really have birthday luck, of course, but my luck is so good that it’s hard to tell the difference.

We are self-serving creatures to the core, of course, and self-serving bias is our ongoing tendency to attribute our successes to skill and our failures to very bad luck. Being an early investor in tech stocks was really smart while being long and wrong in 2001 was really unfortunate. But the reality is that luck (and, if you have a spiritual bent, grace) plays an enormous role in our lives – both good and bad – just as luck plays an enormous role in many specific endeavors, from investing to poker to winning a Nobel Prize.  In fact, if we’re honest, we’ll recognize that many of the best things in our lives required absolutely nothing of us and what we count as our greatest successes usually require great skill and even more luck.

That my birth, which I celebrate tomorrow, was into a loving and stable family that valued education and industry was not my doing. That I was born into a land of freedom and opportunity that would allow and even provide the means for a child of working class parents with no educational background and one high school diploma between them to pursue and secure a world-class education was not my doing. I merely had to provide sufficient effort. That I was blessed with some ability and interest in a field that provides a good living and constant stimulation was not my doing. I merely had to provide sufficient industry. That I have a boss who supports and encourages me in work I love is not my doing. That I married extremely well and have three terrific and productive children who have also married extremely well is only partly my doing (and surely less my doing than I’d like to think). The wonder of delightful grandchildren is grace personified.

I could have been born in the 7^th Century. I could have been born in North Korea. I could have been born into a family that abused me. I could have had to struggle for even minor educational advancement. My boss could be a jerk. My children could be disdainful. My wife could be a little less wonderful (though I doubt it). My grandchildren might never visit. As Frederick Buechner puts it, “all moments are key moments and life itself is grace.”

So truly – happy birthday to me. For much of it – verily, for most of what’s happy about it – I have luck (and grace) to thank.