Luck And (Sort Of) $20

“What’s this, then? ‘Romanes eunt domus’? People called Romanes, they go, the house?” – The Life of Brian

When Clint was taking pottery class, before he put his ceramics into the oven, he’d snarl:  “Go ahead, bake my clay.”

I went on a long-ish walk today.  Walking is fun, gets me outdoors, and allows me to feel the wind on my scalp.  Not that being bald is bad – when I was younger I used to play chess with bald old men at my hometown’s park.  It’s really hard to find 32 of them all at once, though.

I went on the same walk yesterday.  The thought came to my mind, hey, I’m going to find a $20 bill when I go walking soon.

And today?  As I had just finished 1.56 miles (still heading out) I looked in the ditch by the side of the country road.  Could it be?  Was it?

It was.

No, not another Bud Light® can.  It was my $20 dollar bill!  I’m not making any of this up.  Here’s a picture.

I got home and found that someone ripped the center pages out of my dictionary.  It went from bad to worse.

Now it’s not the worst thing I’ve found inert, piled in the weeds next to a crumpled Bud Light™ can – that would be the Ex.  But it wasn’t exactly a full $20 bill, either.

I sent a picture of it to my friend.  “Looks like you’ve got about $9.50 there, John.”

Yup.  It is a real $20 bill.  Just not a complete $20 bill.  And since you need to have 51% of a piece of paper currency to trade it in – it’s not $9.50, it’s $0.00, although I’m sure that in Pennsylvania (or Wisconsin, or Georgia or…), my 45% of a $20 dollar bill would magically transform at 3AM into a full 55%.

So, was I lucky?

Yup, I was.

Why would I deprive an Uber driver of a chance to take part in a marathon?

Although we talk about all of the right things to do with your money (or bullets, or gold, or PEZ®) one thing you have to factor in is luck.

Pa Wilder, generally, did it all the “right way” – saved money, owned his home free and clear for years, bought his cars with cash, and stayed out of debt.  About 25 years after he retired, he was broke – he had spent most of his savings, so my brother John (yes, my brother’s name really is John, too) kicked in and helped Pa along.  Pa didn’t spend it all on pantyhose and elephant rides – generally, he just lived a very quiet life.

Then there was relative “B”.  They went from one cash shortage to another for almost their entire lives – not because of any sort of fault – they were frugal and worked hard.  In one particular cash crunch, they ended up having to sell cattle to pay an emergency bill.  Then, one day, a group of geologists came on to their land just as they’re ready to retire.  The oil company drilled a few wells and started sending them checks.

How much were all those checks worth?

Enough to allow them to get a bulldozer to push over the house they were living in.  Honestly, they didn’t need a bulldozer since the only thing holding the house together were mice holding hands with termites.

I enjoy testing microphone/speaker combinations.  Have any feedback for me?

And enough was left over to build an entirely new house.

It was . . . luck.

As humans, we plan.  We can’t help it.  And we observe patterns:  not getting married until you’re ready, finishing school, not getting divorced, saving money, being thrifty, and investing are things that generally lead to financial stability.

Choice of career is also important – there are few composers of 17th and 18th century-style music that are wealthy.  But for those composers that are?  If it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it.

But we should all take a step back and understand that the future isn’t based entirely on skill – it’s also based on luck.  And, yes, I know what you’re saying – the same thing I normally think – quoting Seneca (the dead Roman):  “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

I try to live my life by those words.

But there’s still just plain luck.

Did Romans kept fit by doing Pontius Pilates?

I am normally that lucky guy.  Seriously – I started writing down a list of incredibly good luck that I’ve had in my life.  It was a very long list.  If I took a hard look at the list, sure, some of it happened because I was clever enough, or fast enough, or strong enough, or just so very pretty – too damn pretty to die, some might say.

But some of those coincidences that happened to me were none of that.  The opportunities were so amazingly rare, and yet, there I was.  It’s not just me who has observed this.  A good friend once described me like this:  “John, if you were walking down the street and fell down into a pile of gum, you’d come back up with a $100 bill stuck to your forehead.”

Part of luck, however, is just understanding that some days are your day – nothing can go wrong.  And other days?  Nothing will go right, even if you’ve prepared wonderfully and meticulously.

Yes, I believe that Seneca is right, and you prepare as hard as you can for those days and seize the ever-loving snot out of those days.  So when it’s my day?  I try to push my luck as far and as fast as I can.  The Romans had this one sniffed out, too:  Fortis Fortuna adiuvat.  Fortune favors the bold.

What kind of aspirin do fortune-tellers take?  Medium strength.

When it’s not my day?  I just slooooooow down.

What I really have seen is that people who are in great moods have . . . the best luck.  Those same people often find opportunities where others don’t see them.

Maybe I’m just an optimist.  I think great things are going to happen to me, so, they do.  When I was out walking on the deck when it was raining and one foot slipped and I did the splits?  The kind of splits that you feel some muscle in your left leg streeeeeeeetch, and then feel that same muscle “give” because I haven’t bent like that since I was in high school?

Not lucky?  Right?

I can’t be sure.  Stretching my leg like a pretty, pretty ballerina sure fired me up to get walking to build that muscle back up.  And it’s working just after a few days.  And I found this neat $20 bill.

Or at least part of one.

Weird, huh?

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

31 thoughts on “Luck And (Sort Of) $20”

  2. There are some things like luck or fate that you can’t get around. I was born to never be tall enough to play in the NBA. On the other hand I was also born to two very intelligent parents giving me good genes and also raised in a stable home with a mom who read to me. But after that, most of what happened to me was under my own control. What we do with the hand we are dealt makes all the difference.

  3. The puns are especially ripe and pungent today in a good way. 🙂

    This is a challenging article to respond to and my immediate thoughts have been said by others many times before.

    I feel for Pa Wilder, I hope our retirement calculations are correct, but as happened to him, things might happen. Although I don’t really see this time as “retirement”, I see it as personal development for something different and better.

    Louis Pasteur said it well, “chance favors the prepared mind”, so I figure that’s the best I can do. This blog helps me with that.

    1. The many excellent comments to the Luck And (Sort of) $20 post make me count my many blessings and be a little open about it.

      And yes, it sounds trite, but I too found $20 on the street as a kid when I was off for a bike ride. I was so thrilled with that, I must have been 8 or 9 and it was like all the money in the world back then.

      I’ve been intubated twice as a kid, was present for the LA riots, had a time as a young adult where there was no money coming in, and had to sell my music CDs for extra cash, drove a car meant for beach weather on icy roads in another state where the brakes and wheels got a mind of their own, and was away from home on business (fortunately not in Manhattan) when 9/11 hit, and it took a little bit of work to get back home.

      Got through that, and lots of wonderful things have happened. Been married for nearly 30 years to a wonderful woman who puts up with me. We also bought a house in Mayberry before SARS-2 and the Troubles. Completed about thirty years of a first career and thankfully doing something different. Now with gray hair, I’m starting the science prep work that I should have done decades ago.

    2. Thank you – even worse jokes on Friday, and directly related to the “different and better.”

      And I’m especially glad if I can help with mind preparations. One of my goals is to allow people to see the world in a slightly different way.

  4. I have had some luck in my life for sure.

    I vividly remember two instances where only by luck I narrowly avoided car crashes that would have killed me.

    Once was when I left a rainy backed-up interstate to take a parallel back road home at interstate speeds. This was not a good idea. I hit a flooded ditch and hydroplaned for a long, long, long way with zero control of the car. Was I in my lane, the other lane, or the shoulders of the road? Yes. All of the above. Scariest 5 or 10 seconds / years of my life. Very nice that the Schrodinger automobile of fate in the other lane chose those instants to not be there.

    The other time was crossing a dark country railroad crossing at night when I pulled right in front of a silent speeding train that was way too close for comfort. I was young and invincible and wasn’t paying attention. My bad.

    In the good luck department, I once found an ENTIRE $20 bill in a parking lot.

    In the even better luck department, once around another Christmastime I found $100 of twenties and an ATM slip all laying together in another parking lot. I looked around and saw a somewhat shabbily dressed woman getting into her old car. I walked over and asked if she was missing something. Her hand grabbed down to a side pouch on her purse and a look of panic spread over her face. I held up the cash and she started crying. I gave her the money and a hug, and being pretty obviously down on her luck she appreciated both. Ah, the good old days before feminism and COVID.

    Sometimes you are somebody else’s luck.

    1. Finding that $100 and giving it back probably helped more than finding that original $20.

      Yeah, I’ve had some silly scares that should have killed me. Fools and children, right?

  6. I thought pilates were something you got on your rear end when you drove a bumpy rough riding truck 12+ hours a day…?

    Relative “B”? Wait a second! How do you know my sister???

  7. I remember one time, I was living in a car in the parking lot of a Waffle House at the time, walking the railroad tracks”home” from work and hungry as hell.

    Thankfully, since the ties were different spaces apart, one had to look down to keep from tripping and doing a face plant. I was about one hundred yards from the car, when I saw a five dollar bill stuck under the track. Back then, that was enough for two meals.

    1. I have a railway luck story, but since I do not know the statutes of limitations for Scotland, I’ll have to give it a pass.

      I have given my guardian angels overtime hazard pay more often than is reasonable. Sometimes luck is “hey, this one didn’t kill me.”

  10. … when I was younger I used to play chess with bald old men at my hometown’s park. It’s really hard to find 32 of them all at once, though.

    Mr. Wilder, let me give my excuse in advance: I’m just completing a move, and the house I’m moving from is one in which my wife and I lived for 35+ years. And, of course, kids for a lot of those years. Those who’ve done this will know what a special little slice of hell it is. Especially when you’re 66, and many inanimate objects have gained weight over the years. Impossible, but that’s how it is. I know, because I couldn’t possibly have lost any strength along with a regrettably-large fraction of my testosterone. Could I?

    Nah.

    So, I’m sitting here over my coffee and reading the internet, as is my wont of a morning, and I read what’s quoted above, and I had to scratch my poor bald head for a bit. Is John such a good chess player that he needed an opponent team of 32 to keep it interesting?

    Then I got it. Damn, that took way too long.

    I hate moving. Fortunately, the end is in sight. Really close now, in fact.

    2. And, moving – over a decade here. We still have some boxes packed from the last time we moved. I’m in no hurry and hope we never have to do it again.

      1. I found I still had some boxes packed moving out of an apartment after five year s of living there. I threw them out without opening them. If i can live without them for five years, then it was not necessary.

        1. I’ve been looking for a shirt that I can’t find since 2010 . . . but, you’re right. At some point our things own us.

  11. I’ve had a long long long list of ‘bad’ things happen to me in the 54 years I’ve been on the planet. Sometimes I’m just close by when the bad things happen, I was in LA for the Rodney King riots and could see fires and smell the smoke from my front door. I was in the Meadowlands on 9-11. I’ve been in Houston for Ike and Rita, Harvey, and every other thing to come out of the Gulf for the last 17 years. I’ve been in earthquakes. Burned my face in a furnace mishap, scrubbed half of it off in a motorcycle accident, and had more car accidents than I can remember. I’ve nailgunned my hands, sliced bits off my fingers, fallen, broke my back, got hundreds of stitches, been chemically burned, arc flashed, cornea sliced, and exposed to toxic materials.

    I’m not unlucky.

    I’m the luckiest guy I know because I LIVED through it. Even if it took months, eventually, I walked away from it. I have a great wife, great kids, great life, had 4 different careers, own my stuff, am financially stable, have 90% of the brains I was born with, and 95% of the mobility.

    When I’m calm, centered, open and attentive to the world, the stuff I need just sort of happens. If I’m upset, frustrated, angry, vengeful, hateful, or hurried, life is one bad thing after another. And for the most part, I CONTROL how I feel, so to a very small extent I control what happens to me, mainly through how I respond to it.

    It takes conscious effort but you can improve your life, and a lot of that comes with improving your attitude.

    Good job John. Maybe you’ll find the other half of that $20 too.

    n

    1. Nick,
      Always great to see you here!! I keep intending to comment after I read your posts, but it’s hard to add anything after 75 or 80 comments!!!!

    2. Oh, and I was down in Fort Bend County for Ike. Watched the John Adams miniseries on the laptop until the battery went. Cooked hot dogs over a candle.

      Good times.

  12. I no longer call it luck. These are blessings and I am thankful for all of them most I don’t even realize. John get one of those smartmatic dominion washing machines and launder that half 20. You will be amazed at what comes out of the machine.

    1. I’m pretty sure that Dominion washing machine would give Mr. Wilder’s clothes and $20 to someone else.

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