Am I lucky? You bet!

Q: I get so angry when people tell me how lucky I am. Don't they realize how hard I'm working? I try to stay away from people who believe you have to be lucky to live your dream.

A: Yes, I know the feeling. When I took a year off to play, when I moved to New Mexico, when I took a special trip, people said, "You are so lucky."

And I answered, with a happy smile, "Yes, I am."

True, I've bee
"working" seven days a week for most of the last twenty years. People get emails time-stamped 5 AM sometimes.

I once heard a successful mystery writer tell a group how many hours she spent plotting each book, with cards all over her living room and piles of notes on the table.

It's work, she said, and added, "And I am so lucky that I have this work to do." That's how I feel.

There's always some element of luck in our lives: being healthy, living in a free country, not serving time for someone else's crime, having education appropriate to our goals, having persistence and determination to save money for our dreams, having motivation to go forward when the going gets rough, having the innate sense to call for help when we need it -- and a whole lot more.

Sure, we work hard for what we get. And what we get is... well, lucky!

So I'd hear those comments as "Congratulations! I admire you!" Hug those people (metaphorically) and say, "Thank you for reminding me. I love my life."

You can add,
"And I think most of us can reach our dreams if we want to."

Refer them to a book, a coach, a counselor or even a movie.

You won't have to avoid them anymore. They'll either go out of your life ("too much joy") or cheer you up every time they say, "Boy, are you lucky!" nnn