On Bad Luck

You were never unlucky. What has happened is in keeping with reason.

Ludovic Alleaume - Beethoven Listening to Muse, 1928. At this time Beethoven was growing deaf, the cruelest imaginable loss for a musician. Yet there he is, eyes closed, in absolute surrender to his muse, to that inner vision that transcends what his ears could no longer reliably tell him.

“Whenever you find yourself blaming providence, turn it around in your mind and you will see that what has happened is in keeping with reason.” - Epictetus

Bad things will happen to you. Not might- will. Perhaps someone you trusted will look you in the eye and lie. A person you love will get sick, and the doctors will use words that feel fictional. You’ll pour yourself into work for months and watch it go nowhere, or worse, watch someone else get the credit. And in those moments- sitting in a hospital waiting room, or staring at your phone after a conversation that just ended everything, or lying awake at 2am running the same loop- the hardest thing in the world is to believe that any of this makes se…