Soup kitchen queues grow as US teeters on brink of new downturn

PasturesNew

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I agree, luck can help.
I do think that you can make luck happen by being there and putting yourself in the position for the luck to happen

You'd need to be lucky though to know there was somewhere to be. You'd need to be lucky in getting the time to be there.
You'd need to be lucky to say the right thing that made somebody notice you.

It still needs a lot of luck for the circumstances to exist.

Remember, we are all even here purely by luck. One night my mum went out to a bar, she met my dad. What if she'd gone to the bar across the road, or gone out an hour later ....?

Life is just one big swirling mist of luck.

Ever seen the film Sliding Doors? One tiny change made two very different outcomes... and the change was which side of the doors she was on when they closed. It's not things we choose to happen, it's what happens to us that gives an end result.

IveSeenTheLight

PasturesNew wrote: »

You'd need to be lucky though to know there was somewhere to be. You'd need to be lucky in getting the time to be there.
You'd need to be lucky to say the right thing that made somebody notice you.

See, I disagree there.
You don't need to be lucky to be somewhere on time.
You make sure you are there on time and possibly good luck will happen to you.
Of course, if you don't make sure you get there on time, you can be sure that you have no chance of having any luck

PasturesNew wrote: »

Ever seen the film Sliding Doors? One tiny change made two very different outcomes... and the change was which side of the doors she was on when they closed. It's not things we choose to happen, it's what happens to us that gives an end result.

I have seen sliding doors, but is it luck that determines ones fate.
I prefer to think it's about the decisions and choices you make, it's not luck that decides on which choice you make.

I believe I was quite lucky when I bought my first flat.
I drove home (to my rented flat) and saw a for sale sign.
Later that evening, I decided (not luck at this point) to walk up and knock on the door.
There was someone in, fixing a few things.
I was lucky because the property was inherited and the person in the flat was only there for an hour before he went home.

I then set the motions to buy the property as fast as I could. I wanted to buy before any other potential buyers had the chance to see the advert or view the property.

Luck was against me as the survey required a specialist report, so again I drove in the motions to get this done as soon as possible.

In the end, I had my excellent solicitor (lucky for me he was a family solicitor for many years and was bloody brilliant at his job) negotiate a brilliant deal before the property was fully advertised (in the weekly papers and the local property website).

Was I lucky to get my first property, partly so, but I only had the chance to be lucky by making sure I did everything I could to my advantage.

StevieJ

carolt wrote: »

So dopester - would you really want to walk past another human being starving or dying of hunger, shrug, and say: "Well it's your own fault".

Even if it were true, which is unlikely to be the case in many circumstances, surely it would be immoral?

Whilst I don't think those who refuse to work should live in luxury, nor do I think those those who can't work should starve.

Explain, please.

Would you walk past Really

Davesnave

I agree that you can change your luck by working smart, not just working hard. An example of this was when two families moved into the small town where I grew up in the 60s.

The first family bought a shop and worked hard selling food, but no matter how hard they worked, the shop only just paid its way. Food products were changing, with more being frozen, or packaged in a convenience orientated way, so this shop that relied mainly on the raw products was not meeting new consumer demands.

The second family also sold a food product, but in this case they were producers. After a while, they saw the chance to become processors. A bit later still, and they were able to produce, process and sell the product themselves. However, what made their business particularly lucrative, was that they next turned their production & processing into a tourist attraction. Before long, they were millionaires.

The first family, seeing the writing on the wall, sold their business and did something else, breathing a sigh of relief that they'd found a buyer, (who didn't last long.)

I don't believe the second family were lucky; they saw an opportunity and had the vision to make the most of it. The first family thought that working hard would be enough, and it was, just, but it didn't lead them anywhere, because they were focused on the rear view mirror.

That's how things will be now, with those looking at the past for a direction losing out to those who see fresh opportunities in the the road ahead, be they ones of fashion, or more substantial, like solutions to difficult modern problems.

By the way, I was a member of the first family.

dopester

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I agree, luck can help.
I do think that you can make luck happen by being there and putting yourself in the position for the luck to happen

Similar thoughts here.

Success as the result of being lucky is a myth promoted by envious mystics. Same for success attributed as being naturally gifted as due to "luck" alone.

Even if there is some randomness involved in the degrees of success an individual can achieve - that doesn't mean a person can't lift themselves from failure/poverty by making good rational choices, decisions and actions in life.

The belief in luck is perhaps the biggest money-losing mystical concept of them all... - where people believe in mystical "luck", acting as their external decision maker, guidance, and authority for the actions they take.

It is part of the bicameral thinking in the desire to escape self-responsibility for consistently making rational decisions needed to prosper by producing values for others.

The bicameral mind (two-chamber mind) is one that functions as as unconscious, two-step process. Automatic reactions and thoughts originate in the right hemisphere of the brain and are transmitted to the left hemisphere as instructions to be acted upon. The bicameral functioning is nature's automatic, learned mode of response without regard to conscious thinking. By contrast, man-made consciousness functions through a deliberate, volitional thought process that is independent of nature's thought process.

For thousands of years, man's brain functioned entirely in nature's automatic bicameral mode. But the automatic bicameral mind became inadequate to handle the mounting problems as societies became more complex. To survive, man was forced to invent a new way of thinking - a new mode called consciousness that could solve infinitely more complex problems. That consciousness mode involved his newly discovered powers of introspection. His thinking process was further enhanced by new thoughts and insights created by comparisons done through metaphors and analogs.

*- The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. - Dr. Julian Jaynes. Princeton University.

Consciousness allows a person to make his or her own decisions rather than relying on nature's bicameral process that automatically follows learned customs, traditional rules, and external authorities. Metaphors and analogs increase a person's range and power of thinking infinitely beyond nature's range.

Yet despite the great advantages in using the man-invented mode of thinking, many people today depend to various degrees on their automatic bicameral mentality and external "authorities" to make their decisions for them.

That bicameral mentality lures people into searching for "sure-thing" guidances from "higher authorities", rather than using their own consciousness for making decisions and determining their actions. Thus, in their search for prepackaged truth and automatic guidance, people seek higher authorities: religion, politics, leaders, gurus, cults, astrology, fortune-tellers, fashion, feelings. The bicameral mind seeks outside sources that will tell it how to think and act. Bicameral mentalities avoid self-responsibility.

vivatifosi

dopester wrote: »

Similar thoughts here.

Success as the result of being lucky is a myth promoted by envious mystics. Same for success attributed as being naturally gifted as due to "luck" alone.

Even if there is some randomness involved in the degrees of success an individual can achieve - that doesn't mean a person can't lift themselves from failure/poverty by making good rational choices, decisions and actions in life.

The belief in luck is perhaps the biggest money-losing mystical concept of them all... - where people believe in mystical "luck", acting as their external decision maker, guidance, and authority for the actions they take.

It is part of the bicameral thinking in the desire to escape self-responsibility for consistently making rational decisions needed to prosper by producing values for others.

I'd go along with that. I do believe that some people are lucky: one of the former bosses at the company where I used to work won the jackpot on the UK lottery the first week it had ever been played. He only had to spend £1 to take home over £800k (there were a lot of winners that first week). Now that really was lucky.

However self-responsibility is key. I don't want to see pensioners, the truly sick or disabled, or their carers struggle. But equally I just don't understand the large swathe of people whose get up and go at some point got up and went, and who have no desire whatsoever to contribute to society through doing their part to earn a wage and pay their taxes.

Why condemn yourself to no greater vision than life on the breadline?

SingleSue

I'm actually not too sure where I stand in relation to viewing luck.

I suppose I could be called unlucky (or stupid!) for giving my ex hubby my best friends msn addy and them then hitting it off, seeing the end to my marriage and good income and comfortable lifestyle.

But

I also think that you can make some of your own luck by applying yourself just a little bit, making things happen.

I don't know...maybe it is a combination of the two.

Viva - Your last sentence is the thing that I find strange about others on benefits, I'm there and I have no intention of staying (hence the study etc) there whilst others seem happy being there...what on earth is all that about?

fedupfreda

vivatifosi wrote: »

Why condemn yourself to no greater vision than life on the breadline?

Because the system makes it pay that way. I know of someone, living in council accommodation, who has given up on full time work because the only work they could get was paying minimum wage, and what with the costs to get to and from work, paying council tax etc they soon realised it wasn't worth the candle, they found some excuse (or rather gave their employer no other option) but to leave their employment, because they had kids they were able to get income support, housing and council tax benefit etc, they felt they were much better off as they were no longer exhausted doing a McJob for a pittance wage - to the point where that particular person has found sufficient energy to make a tidy profit at car boot sales/ebay ...:mad:

I have heard no end of similar tales (ok the rest are anecdotal and I have no actual proof) but you can see why some people do it. They are intelligent enough to realise there is no point knocking themselves out on a minimum wage job when there is a safety net waiting for them to fall into. Also intelligent enough to make a profit at the car boot, in this particular case. If there was no safety net people like this would still survive - somehow - and make a profit. They are modern day spivs. I can appreciate there are many cases of genuine need - and the safety net still needs to be there - but there has to be limits on it. The country can't afford it any more.

Harry_Powell

Andrew64 wrote: »

I've seen a lot of reports in the last week that suggest this is a W-shaped recession, and that in the US the 2nd V is about to come. Who thinks Britain may be the same? Here is one of the more gloomy articles:

Soup kitchen queues grow as US teeters on brink of new downturn

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/21/surge-in-demand-us-soup-kitchens

The FTSE 100 seems to be falling back from its surge, so perhaps the second V is already on its way? I wonder if it will be deeper than the first V? I certainly think it will be more protracted, and I hope people here are following Dopester's advice and putting money away in the good times (, godtimes for people with tracker mortgages anyway!) because I think the 2nd V is going to hurt harder and longer.

What interesting times we live in.

matbe

PasturesNew wrote: »

Last night I was watching some series of programmes based on racing drivers in the 60s and 70s.

And I think Jackie Stewart covered it when he was asked how he'd got where he had.

He used the word "luck" a lot, lucky to be in the right place at the right time .. lucky to meet the right people .. lucky to be introduced to the right people. He ended up saying "I am a very lucky boy".

Luck is something most people won't attribute their success to. They will say it's hard work. Well, those that don't do so well have often worked just as hard, even harder, but just not been as lucky.

Weren't lucky enough to be selected for interview, weren't lucky enough to live in the right place, weren't lucky enough to go to the right school, weren't lucky enough to have an opportunity, weren't lucky enough to be picked.

Luck ... it's got a LOT to do with it.

The harder I work the luckier I get.