Luck lite

In my previous post, I described some of my feelings toward depressive tendencies, and some of the things that indicate to me that I might not be so depressed. Of course, this is all personal & anecdotal, not rigorous scientific inquiry, so take things with a grain of salt, eh?

I want to explore similar matters and the topic that comes to mind now is luck.

I consider myself a lonely, but lucky person. A strange combination, I know. When I speak of luck, it can mean that, for example, I've won a few sweepstakes in my lifetime (despite not entering very often). A barbecue here; a Nintendo 64 game there; a big toy truck, once upon a time. Never mind that I was mostly vegetarian when I won the barbecue, didn't own a Nintendo 64, and was a teenager when I won the toy truck. It's still luck, hey?

I'm also lucky in a physiological sense. Never broken a bone. Never been in a motor accident. Scrapes and bruises from biking sure, but nothing serious. Now I will say that I perhaps haven't been so lucky on the mental health side, but there is always luck if you know where to find it. By that I mean that while I might have had incredibly frightening, disruptive, and agonizing moments in the past, I've always come out stronger. I've learned to take care of myself better because of those experiences. And although I've been medicated in the past - sometimes against my will -, I've managed to build a resilience over the years with all the ups and downs and am not currently taking drugs to "treat" a condition. Some people are not so lucky, and end up on a cocktail of some very dangerous (especially in the long term) substances that do nothing to get at the root cause of their issues. And no, a chemical imbalance in the brain is not the root cause of depression.

I feel like I'm lucky on the spiritual side. If you look in my "About Me" section on this blog, you'll notice that I've written "voice hearer" as part of my identity. I don't constantly hear voices. When I do hear them, they're rarely, if ever, a nuisance. For some people, this is not the case. For some people, the voices can be harsh, negative, and can sometimes say downright scary things. Not so for me.

I'll never forget the first time that I heard a voice, not quite inside my head. Without going into the specifics of the situation, I was away in an unfamiliar place, trying to get my bearings with little sleep, and the gentle voice simply said: "You're doing a good job!". Thankfully I was skiing with friends, and things did eventually go south for a while; at the time, the novelty of the situation really took a hit on my functioning and I actually ended up spending months back home pacing all day, trying to figure out what was wrong with me and trying to avoid the anxiety. Where does luck come into all this? I guess I feel lucky that I do have the capacity to hear voices, and that they are allies, and that I've gotten support from very caring individuals in the past.

I'm lucky that I live in Canada. I'm even luckier that I live in the biggest city in Canada (spoken truly like someone from the Centre of the Universe heh), and that I can walk/bike/transit to anywhere I need to be. I'm in my thirties and I don't drive. I don't have to deal with insurance payments and car maintenance and traffic jams. Sure, it would be nice to escape to greener pastures with ease once in a while, but I'm content with letting people who drive for a living take me where I need to go. And I have enormous respect for the truck, train, bus drivers etc. who make society livable for the rest of us. So, yes, I'm lucky that I live in Canada and not in a war-torn country, for example.

No doubt I could keep writing about luck. I haven't even touched on my luck in video games, for example. I guess this post is a way for me to express gratitude that I have luck on my side, and I will knock on wood and end this post now. 

Later-in-the-day edit: I forgot to mention what spurred me to write this post this morning! I woke up with literally the lyrics to The Spirit of Radio by Rush in my head.

Begin the day with a friendly voice, a companion unobtrusive

If you have not heard this masterpiece before, I implore you to give it a listen. It was originally released in 1980, but 3 years ago Rush released an official music video. Here it is below: