I’ve been reading a lot of Calvin & Hobbes lately. 

A child of the 80’s, I remember enjoying the comic strip as a kid, but reading it as an adult is a completely different experience.

That rambunctious kid and his stuffed tiger have a lot of layers.

In a strip I read recently, the pair are careening down a hill in a red wagon while Calvin tells Hobbes that we are all victims of “luck” and that there’s nothing any of us can do about it. 

As the frames pass Hobbes leaps from the red wagon before Calvin flies off a cliff, further proving Calvin’s bad luck. 

Hobbes notes, from a safe perch atop the cliff, that the same thing happened yesterday, revealing that Calvin might be less a victim of bad luck and more a victim of taking the same unwise actions over and over again.

Sound familiar?

It’s convenient to blame bad luck for the things in your life that you don’t like, but it would be wise to examine how your day-to-day habits might be informing those outcomes.

After all, pointing your red wagon in the same direction every day is a great way to find yourself at the bottom of the same cliff.

OPPORTUNITY FOR ACTION: Identify one habit that isn’t serving you well and find an alternative. Bonus points will be awarded if you enlist the help of someone else…