As part of my new blog, I thought it would be fun to start a regular series about something near and dear to my heart: kung pao chicken.
Okay, let me clarify. On most Fridays I like to “ring in the weekend” by treating myself to lunch at one of my favorite local Chinese restaurants. And what is the best part of these lunches? The fortune cookie of course. Seriously, I’ve been tempted to buy a whole bag of these delicious beauties. But I don’t want to spoil the magic. I know you can relate.
Lately, I have been giving more thought to the fortune cookie messages. Before I would have just rolled my eyes or shrugged and then thought nothing more of it. But then I got to thinking. What if the level of profundity is proportionate to the attention I give it? Hmmm.
That said, every Friday (hopefully) I am going to share my fortune from my lunch and give you my take on what I learned from it. Here is today’s:
“You will always have good luck in your personal affairs.”
Wow, where to start? You could almost break it down word by word, attaching meaning to ‘will’ and ‘always’ and ‘good’. I won’t even talk about ‘affairs’.
But my takeaway from this fortune is that life, good or bad, comes down to perspective and your personal outlook. One of my favorite quotes is from Albert Einstein. He said:
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
My life is what I choose to make it. Life is how I choose to see it and live it. If I look for miracles I will find them. If I look for the bad I will find that too. If I choose to find the ‘good luck’ in all my personal affairs, then ANY event or instance, even ones intrinsically negative, can be turned into a positive learning experience for my benefit.
For example, in my 19-year career as a graphic designer I have been laid off from 8 of my 12 jobs. One of the occupational hazards of working as an in-house creative in the tech industry. Not to mention my average time at a job is about 18 months. I won’t lie, that’s a lot of disruption and stress to ones family life. People talk about the stability of a day job, but that is a discussion for another day.
My point in sharing my work history is that it would be easy to grumble and bemoan my luck. But honestly, EVERY single layoff has brought with it new and greater opportunities, not only for professional growth but for income as well–even during times when the economy wasn’t doing so well. That is a miracle by anyone’s definition.
So in this area, I have always had good luck in my personal affairs. And believe me, I consider myself very, very blessed in this regard.
Side note: This reminds me of something my father once told me. He said ones best chance for a sizable pay increase comes from changing jobs or getting a promotion, not from annual pay increases. Maybe he was on to something there.
To your good fortune!
