Seven

I recently completed a design project course that involved a creation of an autonomous robotic vehicle to traverse varying types of terrain. It was a long term, so many teams were putting it off. Our team was rather diligent and started the planning and prototyping phase well in advance. During this phase, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong, staggered, and all at once. It was Murphy’s law on the juice. Shipping delays. Wrong transistors ordered. Weak motors. Short circuited PCBs. Tolerance issues for 3D printed parts. The list can go on.

In the end, we thought that our hard work has paid off, since we were done the project early with 15 test runs successfully completed consecutively. We decided to jump the gun and present first. And the outcome was bittersweet to say the least. We were of course expecting a perfect run (like the last 15), but our sensor decides to fuck with us which lead to the robot begin to do donuts all over the track. Needless to say we were frustrated that the all the work we put in couldn’t net us the perfect score we desired. There were many robots who were successful on their first try, and I bet some of my skilled classmates whipped something up in 2 weeks and got it working just in the nick of time.

And this got me thinking. Why were we so unlucky? Surely something had to have gone our way out of all the dice rolls. At a young age, I was always taught that luck is a byproduct of your good deeds. I suppose it was just a long winded way of saying “Karma’s a bitch”. To me, karma doesn’t make sense. Maybe I only have a shallow depth of understanding, but I remember I took world religion in senior year of high school. We were learning about Hinduism, and how their socio-economical framework is based around the idea of a caste system. You’re basically born into the life you will lead. The lowest level, dubbed “Untouchables” (which is rather dehumanizing…), have a goal in life, to bring good merit to themselves in order to be reincarnated into a higher level in the caste system. If I can recall, this was called “The circle of Samsara”, and the ultimate goal is to break it, and reach the state of highest being, becoming one with their god “Brahman”.

I tend to turn many things in life into an RPG, so in this scenario, wouldn’t you be able to just do good deeds with the intention that you will gain something from it? Is there a leveling system where you can just stack up good deeds and trade them in? With that logic, did we get unlucky in the design project because someone didn’t tip their Uber Eats courier?

In Christianity, I’ve always understood that doing good has to come from within. It’s a feeling that compels you to do good, not for the getting something in return, or stacking your invisible merit point collection, or to even come back in the next life richer.

Personally, I’ve always argued that in most uncontrolled cases, luck is completely random. At the armageddon level, who’s to say a 1km wide asteroid won’t eject itself from the Kuiper belt and come barreling at Earth? We can’t even predict three bodies interacting with certainty, never mind as asteroid belt. How about something more down to Earth (hehe). My commute to work is via bike, cause “i’M sAvInG tHe EnViRoNmEnt!11!!” (nah I’m just broke). I’m always keeping an eye out for the weather. I’ve counted three times in the last week where it said it would rain in the next hour, and then it doesn’t. There’s nothing we can do to influence things that we can’t control, is that God’s work? Or have we not figured out how to order chaos?

Look, I know it seems super doomer and nihilistic, but I cherry picked things that we (with our current understanding of mathematics) can’t predict. Luck and success go hand in hand, but I suppose people just don’t realize how lucky they are, me included. You can work your ass off and still walk home empty handed. But even though you can’t win 100% of the time even if you do everything right, you can still do your best and let the dice roll. Somedays, it’ll be in your favour, other days not.

Taylor Atwood is a very skilled powerlifter that I follow. But what amazes me more than deadlifting 340kg at 74kg bodyweight, is his mindset. I recall a post he made, captioned, and I’m paraphrasing: “Remember the 5P’s: Perfect Practice Prevents Poor Performance”. I think this quote perfectly sums up the model outlook and mindset to have on achieving goals in life. Not the typical “fOlLoW yOuR dReAmS, s0n”, or “pRaCtIcE mAkeS pErFeCt”, but rather “do all that you can do, and leave it up to the universe to decide”. Notice “Prevents”, not “Eliminates”.

And just do good for the sake of good. Or do bad for the sake of bad. I don’t know where we draw the line, you can decide

-ekd