on luck
To be human is to acknowledge that the world isn't fair, and continue to act fairly nonetheless.
Every time I'm upset about being wronged, or faced with minor inconveniences of a bad day, I allow myself a whine and a cry — even a few curses screamed into the void — and eventually remind myself that the universe doesn't owe me anything. Actually, more specifically, I remind myself that I couldn't survive as an animal, within jungle laws, left to the 'natural' justice of the universe. It's common to wish one was a cat or bird that doesn't have to deal with the urban stresses of being a person, but that we've built an incredibly empathetic and sophisticated (although imperfect) punitive system, is nothing short of a miracle.
It's why I'm so intolerant of the preachers of karmic justice — the "manifestation gurus" and "lucky-girl-syndrome" types. It's simply cruel to disregard the systems of justice that work to protect your privilege. The algorithm of society is centuries in the making, and so the ways in which it 'manifests' is often invisible - or magical - and misread as the universe acting in your favour. Any theory that implies good luck maybe stemming from good deeds, also logically concludes that a suffering person must be reaping the consequences of 'bad karma' — which is a vicious rebranding of superstitions that predate the age of science.
More than a convenient delusion, it allows us to abandon the critical responsibility of working towards a society that's more just than today. Society is entirely man-made, and there's nothing obvious or natural about it. It tends to favour those who abide by its rules - written by the 'majority' or the historically victorious - and rules evolve based on our beliefs and actions.
Life's unfair, but in unequal measures. Instead of preaching the ignorance of karmic manifestations, we need to check our privilege and work toward an algorithmic revision that extends the invisible hand of 'luck' more generously.