In 1,000 parallel universes, you want to be wealthy in 999 of them. You don’t want to be wealthy in the fifty of them where you got lucky, so we want to factor luck out of it. HOW TO GET LUCKY — Almanack of Naval Ravikant
Many people drift through life without a definite purpose.
They perceive life as a series of random events and entrust their fate to chance. They aim for luck while disregarding risks, unaware or indifferent to the intricate dance between the two.
Ralph Waldo Emerson captured the ethos, stating: “Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances… Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
We all know that our present selves are the culmination of our past experiences, our upbringing, the people with whom we associate, and the environments in which we immerse ourselves. However, when it comes to foreseeing an unknown future, we cease to imagine and leave it to randomness.
What’s their misstep? A lack of vision for life. Yet, every great story starts with a vision, as exemplified in a documentary (“jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy”) of renowned musician Kanye West.
Kanye was born into a middle-class family and raised by a single mother who was a college professor and had a profound impact on him and his art.
Early in his career, he was typecast as a producer and struggled to be taken seriously as an artist. But that didn’t shake his unwavering self belief. A clear vision for his art and career, coupled with a relentless determination to achieve his dream, eventually led to the breakthrough, establishing him as one of the most influential and polarizing cultural icons of our time.
What do you see yourself in 5, 10, 30 years?
I can’t answer that for you. Nevertheless, if there’s only one takeaway from Kanye’s journey, it would be our destiny isn’t determined by our origins, rather by our actions.
Make luck a remnant of design. We’re not lottery tickets.