Whoever you may be, you have probably performed some kind of cultural ritual to call on Lady Luck once or twice in your life. For me, it was often a cross of the fingers and a quick prayer: “please, please, please, be on my side today!”

We tend to believe that luck is a wild card. “Lady Luck,” the Contemporary Western sister of the Roman goddess of luck, Fortuna, awards fortune and misfortune on a whimsical gamble. Nobody, including herself, knows which lot they will be given.

This is the backstory popular culture has fed us for generations. We have been told that big successes are for the few, the world is unfair, and we all have to accept and live with our lot in life. In the meantime, we are all hustling along, trying to find the next Superhack to make our lives a little bit easier. We have so many big dreams, and so little time!

I have now learned that all of this is false advertising. We’ve been fed a lie, and I am breaking the silence.

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