What exactly is luck? Luck has to do with the chance of bringing either good or ill to a person. Whenever we talk about chance, we also talk about the probability of something occurring. A classical example is the coin toss, assuming the coin is a fair coin (no defects); the chance of heads or tails each time the coin is tossed is 50 percent.

When we speak about luck in our lives, the concept takes on much more complicated dimensions. I often describe myself as being extremely lucky; this definition is a relative definition. For example, to date, I have not be diagnosed with any terminal ailment, I have no chronic ailment, I have a good job, neither my kids nor my wife have any major problem and on and on. However, when I look at the world at large, I cannot say the same for millions of people. So what exactly is responsible for this difference?

We ascribe luck in our lives to events that we cannot readily explain, or for which we have not found an answer. Why do some individuals appear to have more problems than others? Why do some people have a lot more money than others? Why do some individuals get the best jobs while others with the same credentials can't? Why do we assume that kids born with ailments, not having wealth or not being in a position of power are afflicted with bad luck? Society at large has built in these definitions simply to explain things that they cannot explain.

Most of us can relate to the story of our friends, neighbors, co-workers or someone in our state winning the mega million or power ball or some other lottery. In some cases, we find out that the person who won was playing the lottery for the first time, in the meantime, we have been playing religiously for over a decade, and so what exactly accounts for the luck ascribed to the person who won? This example is based on the randomness of luck and the probability of winning, and thus can be logically explained. What we cannot explain is with the odds, how come some individuals have won more than once?

Some would argue that luck does not exist, their favorite maxim is: "luck is what happens when hard work meets opportunity." There is some truth to this statement. We all know that the world is becoming more and more competitive, so how could one conclude that another individual is luckier than they are simply because they do not understand how the other individual has managed to obtain something that they would like to have? Many times what happens to us is that we overstate

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