Fortune

Fortune is akin to the Buddhist concept of merit. One can engage in acts that have merit and still have bad luck. We choose to be fortunate, and we can choose to be fortunate even in circumstances that others might see as unfortunate. Choice can affect fortune even if it doesn’t seem to change luck. We all know people who seem to encounter serious misfortune, perhaps on a chronic basis. They don’t really understand the worth of the events that happen to them. They don’t see the web of fortune.

Fortune happens whether it’s going well or poorly, and many goods are lost or fail to come to fruition because support is withheld. Since we cannot help everyone as individuals, what if instead we just chose to be mindful of the web of fortune in our immediate surroundings? Find one good that we can foster for a time.

“Fortune knocks at every man’s door once in a life, but in a good many cases the man is in a neighboring saloon and does not hear her” Mark Twain (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)

“To attract good fortune, spend a new penny on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.” Proverb