I was thinking about how I’ve never felt lucky. Ever since I can remember, it’s always seemed like life has forced me to take the long way around. It’s true, I’ve had a lot of wonderful things happen to me. I’ve actually, quite literally, experienced what it’s like to have a dream come true. But it has always—always—come at the expense of something else. And when that’s how life has dealt with you, when a good thing

comes, you are always waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath you. Where’s the loophole? Where’s the mistake? How did I misread it all this time? This way of thinking is completely unproductive. It fosters an environment of anxiety, self-doubt, low self-esteem. And to be honest, it’s an environment I don’t belong in. We don’t belong in. You see, I’ve never felt lucky, and maybe you haven’t either, but the truth is when good things happen to us, accept them. Celebrate them! We deserve them. We deserve good things. We put up with enough shit. When the good things happen—bask in them.

Luck was on my mind all day today (being that it is St. Patrick’s Day). I decided to pull a tarot card. Feeling unlucky, confused and worn, guess what I pulled? Strength. Strength is the eleventh card in the major arcana in the deck I used (in some it is number 8). If you’ve read my last post you know 11 has very much so made its presence known in my life lately. But besides that, the message I pulled overall from the Strength card is patience. Strength isn’t brute force. It isn’t barreling through obstacles, destroying carelessly whoever and whatever is in your path. Strength is accepting who you are. It’s accepting where you are at, and having the patience and determination to get to where you want to be. Strength is setting goals and accepting that when you are setback it is not the end of the world, it’s a process. Strength is knowing when to keep the door open, and when to close it. Strength is knowing luck plays a very minimal factor in where you end up, and acknowledging that your personal choices play a major one.

Sure, we’re lucky in many ways. But what are you choosing to do with what you’ve been given? What are you letting hold you back simply because you don’t think you’re equipped to handle it? Let me tell you, you are. Strength calls for leadership. Don’t fall into the background of your own life. This is your story, your dream.

I also challenge you to make a more difficult assessment of your own life. Are you surrounding yourself with people who make you feel strong? Do they build you up? Do they remind you of what you have to offer? Do they tell you they’re proud of you when you’ve accomplished something? Do they emphasize to you what you’re worth? If they don’t, perhaps it’s time to seek out those who are more uplifting, those who see what you see in them. Of course there are times when we need to be strong for others where they cannot for nothing in return. And unfortunately, people are not always able to tell us they need us to be strong for them. They don’t want to be seen as weak, vulnerable or dependent. Our ability to still support them without agenda comes from our own strength and unconditional love (for both ourselves and them).

The bottom line—I am lucky. You are lucky. If we have even one person who sticks by us in our lowest hour—at our weakest—to be our strength, how could we not be blessed? And sometimes, that person is ourselves. We shake the dust and keep going. We accept the unexpected, the unfair, the unrequited and the uncalled for.

We smile.

We laugh.

And we make our own goddamn luck.