Shaun McQuaid Gets Philosophical

One of the songs that comes up fairly often on my iPod on the way to work has the following lyrics:

“It’s not a matter of luck – it’s just a matter of time.”

I like this idea. The thought that steady, constant progress towards a goal will eventually reap rewards. It’s a nice thought.

And at the same time, I’m forced to look back over my life and realize that certain points, certain decisions I’ve made…they were made with incomplete data, and based solely on what I knew at the decision point. Some would be different given a different perspective, a different data set, increased experience, and hence, I have to conclude that points such as those, where a decision nexus swirls with grey uncertainty, are made more by luck than by skill and steady progress towards a goal.

What does all this mean? Well, for me, I’d say that it’s not JUST a matter of luck, and it’s not JUST a matter of time, but instead, my forward progress in life (insofar as we can define progress as “forward”) is both a matter of luck and a matter of time.

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