Yeah. I got busted for reckless driving and had my license suspended for six moths with work and one day a week chore privileges. When I went to get my license back they showed no record of it being suspended. Apparently the judge made the paperwork disappear as I was a first timer. It didn't go on my driving record.
When I was about 7, I won a bicycle in a Montgomery Wards drawing. ( 3 years later it was stolen out of the barn. ) At age 18, I won the first motorcycle race I was ever in. (It was a National drag race) I found a winning lottery ticket blowing across my lawn. it was a scratch-off worth $2.
One Time when i was driving home from college, I entered the freeway only to be "greeted" by a bunch of semis. Not wanting to be around them, I "hit the gas" and went far ahead of them( the speed limit was 55 mph). Unfortunately, what I didn't see was the Highway Patrol car following the semis when I'd entered the freeway... but he sure saw me. Those red lights in the mirror just give you a feeling of doom. The officer said he clocked me doing 81 (far short of the 90 my speedometer said I was doing). After ruining my license he came back and said the he should ticket me for speeding, but since I had a clean record he was going to give me a break. I sat there and waited until he pulled away before I continued on my way - doing exactly 55 mph the entire 75 miles back home.
Something similar happened to me. I did a wheelie on my motorcycle when I shifted gears while quickly making a left turn to stay ahead of oncoming traffic. The lead car, unfortunately was a police car. Two policemen pulled me over and reprimanded me as they looked at my license. I was a delivery driver so had a chauffeur/motorcycle driver's license. The two policemen were rookies and couldn't figure out what kind of license it was. They admitted to that and said they'd let me go with a warning. I thanked them and explained to them it was a dual license.
Recently invited to speak publically and give a reading of my work. I said yes, so I'm now booked for the 10th Dec. Came out of the blue - had never imagined it would happen.
Thank you. Work, yes, have been writing for a while now. But still lucky. The person who invited me had heard me reading my work aloud. It was a fluke that he visited our writers' group that day - might never have happened if one of the group hadn't accidentally met him.
I think work, or rather, sustained purposeful and selective practice is what makes "talent".
In Bali, every villager is talented. Each village has a specific craft or art; music, dance, sculpture, painting, batik textiles etc. The children imitate in play from three-years-old; at five, they start to learn the skills; by fourteen, their skills match the adults. It blows the Western idea of talent out of the water - or it did mine. In the West, we cripple creativity by pushing kids through the molds of academic schooling. The older the kid grows, the less attention is given to teaching creative skills - mainly because the Powers That Be don't place a high value on the arts or independent thinking. The child's natural lateral thinking and imagination slowly atrophy.
This post was edited by inky at October 1, 2018 4:31 AM MDT
To be purely luck, it has to be something that I had absolutely nothing to do with. On my recent trip I booked a room at a B&B. The website said that this particular room was a rare find. When we arrived at our accommodation, the owner told us she was booked solid for the next two month but had a cancellation just seconds before we requested our room. It was a great place on the Isle of Skye at a good price. I've been extremely lucky in many other, more meaningful ways too but in most of these instances it was a combination of luck (or God if you prefer) smiling on my efforts. They say success is where hard work and preparation meet opportunity. That has been very true in my life. It's nice to see you on here DB.
Element 99 