Lucky?

I don't know how the conversation started, but yesterday at work, a couple of the other supervisors were talking about alcohol: how expensive it is, how sick it makes you, how stupid you act when you've had too much of it, and so forth. At one point, one of my co-workers said to me, "You're lucky you don't drink."

Now, I'm not as judgmental as I used to be. I try to be tolerant of other people's choices and lifestyles, even when I think they're stupid and short-sighted, as long as they don't make my life difficult. But this one hit me a little differently. From prior conversations with the individual in question, I know that he was raised as a Latter-day Saint (i.e., "Mormon"). So he was taught everything about alcohol that I was. Yet he chooses to drink, and I found it a little aggravating that he also chooses to complain about it.

Most of the time, I have to think very carefully before I respond to a statement that upsets, annoys, or angers me. Otherwise, I say something stupid and unproductive, and end up with my foot in my mouth. I should probably have athlete's tongue, it's happened so often. But on this occasion, the spontaneous answer was practically perfect.

I looked him in the eye and said, "Lucky? Luck has nothing to do with it."

Choice. It's about choice - —and accountability for the choices we make. When we make good decisions, we make our own luck.