Some People Have All The Luck

Recently I was listening to a podcast and the guy said, “Stop telling people that they are lucky. You are minimizing the success that they have worked hard to get.” This really stuck with me. I hate when people say thing like, “oh, your so lucky.” I feel like God gives all of us great things and some not so fun challenges but it’s up to us to maximize the good things and work with what we have in the challenges. We live in a world of social media where people show their highlight reel. Personally I love it! I love seeing how cute the kids are of people I went to school with. I love seeing old friend buying new cars and building their dream houses. I love seeing the big wins at horse shows large and small. However I hate seeing the comments “Oh your so lucky.” The thing about highlight reels is that people show you the wins, they don’t show you the blood, sweat and tears that went into accomplishing this big thing.

Some of the things that I get told are: “Your so lucky, your so skinny.” “Your so lucky that you don’t have a real 9-5 job.” Your so lucky that you live on a ranch.” Your so lucky that you have a good horse.” “Your so lucky.”

Well I am lucky that my parents passed down good genes but I also eat pretty healthy, we vary rarely go out to eat and I also workout, run and live a very physically active life.

I am so blessed to not have to punch a time card anymore but, with that comes the fact that my day never ends. I always have something to do. A cow that needs help with having her calf doesn’t care that its 9pm and I haven’t ate dinner or lunch and have been up since 4am. I am so blessed to be doing something that I love todo and that I don’t know what day of the week it is but with that I work every day all day long. That’s a choice that I have made and as much as I would love to sleep in or have a weekend of doing nothing this is the choice that I made.

I am so blessed that I get to live on a ranch. It is so peaceful and such a blessing to get to walk out the house door and be greeted by my horse or watch the cow out my window before I go to sleep. With that we work all of the time. There is no such thing as bank holidays or weekends. The more animals and land the more chores and management that is needed. I have to go to weddings and most things by myself because you can’t just leave all of the animals to fend for themselves. We make a lot of sacrifices to live the life that we do.

I absolutely love my “good” horse but he hasn’t always been that great. We have been partners for a long time and we have been through many days of blood, sweat and tears. Heck we still have those days. I spent a lot of time as a loper and groom because I didn’t have the cash to get lessons but did have some sweat equity to put into getting help. I use to even bake cookies and bring them to the horse shows to get some help first thing in the morning when it was just the trainers out riding. He is good in a lot of way and not so good in others but I made the choice that I wanted a horse to show in the Cowhorse and Ranch classes so I can’t be mad that he isn’t going to place in a Western Pleasure class or Jumping. While I love those classes I made the choice that I was going to focus on the Cowhorse and Ranch and while I love seeing a good western pleasure horse and the jumping and hope that one day I can show in those events for now I am happy with the choice that I made.

I feel like people use luck as an excuse for why they haven’t achieved their goals. I think that deep down we know what it took. We know when we got beat that maybe we shouldn’t have pushed snooze on our clock and missed a morning workout to sleep in. Everyone makes choices in life and those choices come with consequences but they can also come with glory. I know that in my life when I am really hustling and trying to reach my goals I am so much more excited for the people around me that are crushing their goals. I guess that’s just because I know how hard they must be working to get there!

When I was at my last run I was passed by a guy flying down the hill on his wheelchair bike. I guess I could have said “Boy is he lucky, he is just rolling.” but how dumb would that sound to say about someone that is out there giving it their all fighting a lot of challenges and making lemonades of out lemons. I hope the next time you tell someone that they are lucky you think back to that example of how stupid you sound. Although I could visibly see that he was conquering a major obstacle the person that you just told them that they were lucky is probably conquering something that you don’t know about.

I guess you can say what about when we draw bad at an event or the judge doesn’t catch a mistake. I think that just evens itself out the more you go. That’s just part of the adventure and makes the time when everything does go right all that much more sweeter.

So stop telling people that they are lucky. Instead be happy for them. No matter what it is they have made a choice to get them to whatever success that they are at. Even if they had a make a deal with the devil to get it rest assured that it will catch up with them. Nothing comes with out a price. I hope that you are all reaching for big goals and are taking the steps to get to there to achieve them. Know that I am so excited for you to reach that goal and I will be celebrating the hard work that you put to get there!

It’s not luck, its hard work, determination, sacrafies and using your God given talents!