Saying cheers to luck
A realization on how lucky I've been to be lucky
Happy Sunday!
I have a confession to make; for almost two years now, I’ve been starting my days with a cup of coffee and solving the day’s Wordle. I’ve only skipped two or so plays, and it’s become, together with a few other New York Times puzzles, my go-to-way for kickstarting my brain every day. At some point, I got Ellie hooked on it too, although she only solves them on the weekends. This morning, as we were having coffee, she gleefully came to me to show that she solved today’s puzzle in three tries (it took me four). “It’s luck of course!”, she said.
Wordle is about guessing words, so that’s definitely luck, supported by a good vocabulary. But as I turned 40 last Friday, with a wonderful celebration at DOM Concept Space in Sofia, attended by so many of you, I realized once more that luck is also the most important asset in life.
The luck to be healthy, to be living in a peaceful country, to do work that is meaningful and rewarding, and to be surrounded by good people. Some will say that it’s more about the effort that you put into it, quoting Picasso’s famous words that “Inspiration exists but it has to find you working”. I disagree. I think there are very few people that don’t try or work very hard. But there are so many circumstances that are beyond our ability to work on them, or our power to prevent them.
I have friends who have survived cancer. I have friends who have lost loved ones too early. I have friends who have been scammed out of their business or savings. I have friends who had to flee from war. That’s all things that have absolutely nothing to do with how hard they tried for them not to happen.
On Friday, when I celebrated my birthday, and raised a glass with a toast to my assembled friends, I urged for optimism, quoting my beloved Leonard Cohen: “I’ve studied deeply in the philosophies and the religions, but cheerfulness kept breaking through”. Looking back at my life, I do believe that optimism has been my most important trait. But what has enabled me to be an optimist, my biggest blessing in the grander scheme of things, is that I have been consistently lucky.
So as I wrap up this celebratory weekend, I’ll do another toast here, as a continuation of Friday’s: May We Always Be Lucky in Life.
And finally, while we’re still on the Birthday note; a very big thank you to everyone who attended my party and donated to the Stoyan Kambarev Foundation, to support extraordinary young Bulgarian artistic talent. Our donation will go towards the “Tress of Talent” Xmas tree park in Sofia, that will be unveiled in a central location on December 1, with all proceeds going to the Kambarev Foundation stipend fund. Somewhere early December, I will announce a time where we can come together at a Xmas market close to the tree park, and celebrate once more with a cup of mulled wine at “our” Xmas tree!
