Often I hear people claim that, “God put me in the right place at the right time!” I have never heard anyone credit God for delivering them to the wrong place in their lives.
Others of course attribute success to luck, which I guess is as mysterious a force as a deity. And I remember the lesson that my late wife tried to impart to others.
In her first teaching position, she was denied tenure, but applied for jobs during what she referred to as the “pity year,” and was then hired for another job quite easily. Later, she was fired from that position (long story), but wound up getting hired for yet another teaching position almost immediately. When she told people her story, they would inevitable say, “Wow, you’re lucky!”
Of course, if she was really lucky, she would have gotten tenure for the first job or not have had others conspire against her to get her fired for the second, but that’s for other planes of the multiverse.
When people suggested she was lucky, she would explain that her past experiences resulted in proper training and background and also imparted resilience and persistence to her personality. So she knew how to roll with the punches and get a new job.
From another perspective: I always suggest that we are the main characters in our personal stories, but for my story, she was an important supernumerary and spear carrier, because the positions she found herself in allowed me to finish my doctorate and then develop and teach classes and direct a variety of plays in order to develop into the ideal candidate for the job that I had for 17 years and retired from.
