All The Lucky Ones Are Dead

Some people are lucky, I told my son. What does that mean, he asked. He is 10 years old, so I had to think before I could answer. Well, you know, life has constant ups and downs. When the grand sum of the ups gets huge compared to the downs, then that person is lucky. Oh, like when I play Roblox and someone gives me a bunch of Robux and I buy this magic shirt for my avatar which gives me a billion Robux, and then I take over the server and all the players have to pay me if they want to play in my server… He trails off into a story about online gaming where luck is measured in a digital currency called, you guessed it, Robux. Something like that, I reply vaguely. But I want to tell him so much more.

Whether being fortunate by birth or by one’s own accomplishment, each person’s fortune is entirely their own. Luck is non-transferable, non-linear, and just like money, you can never have enough of it. Success is always a combination of merit and circumstance. But luck is what makes moderately successful people truly golden. Having a decent amount of talent and working hard can certainly be enough to get by or even enough to get into a socially elevated position. But if you throw some proper luck into the mix, it puts you straight into celebrity territory. Barring luck and talent, you have no choice but to resort to hard work forever.

Being a transactional lawyer, I usually deal with the lucky types. People who are hunkered down in survival mode do not become clients of transactional lawyers. Divorce lawyers, yes. Criminal lawyers, often. But becoming clients of transactional lawyers, almost never. Our professional space is reserved for people on the up and up. This is partly due to cost, and partly due to the fact that we are in the business of servicing large commercial transactions. Thus, my clients are either business owners or their handpicked executives. These people are at the respectable intersection of money, luck and professional accomplishment. Like any other group of distinguished individuals, some lucky people stand out even more. Through my work, I have been fortunate to know a few such guys and to work with them over a period of years.

One of them, let’s call him Bill, had been a salesman. He started from the bottom. He built an industry-leading sales team. Then an entire company grew around his team. The company got sold to a competitor and Bill made out like a bandit. He used some of the money to start another company in the same business. The new company was his retirement project of sorts. It was a low-stress, friendly place, with an open bar, outstanding espresso coffee, generous entertainment allowances, and lots and lots of blondes. When he felt in good spirits, Bill would promise random employees to buy them Ferraris for Christmas. His own aspirations were well above a red sports car. I saw him, more than once, browsing private jet listings. He was lucky and wealthy and relatively young compared to people in a similar social position.

Another lucky guy was Steve. He also started from the bottom. Worked as a farm hand during high school. He was clumsy and socially-awkward. He put himself through college and came out with a liberal arts degree. Then he went for a masters degree in Arabic. Finding both his credentials to be largely useless, he opted for law school. His first job was a grind. It required long hours and a long commute. After five years, he made a move to a small oilfield service company where he was the only lawyer on staff. It turned out to be a very lucky move. The company merged with another. Then it merged again and again. Steve kept his job through the changes and got promotions within the ever growing legal department. Soon enough, he was the top in-house lawyer at an industry-leading corporation. He partnered with one of his business contacts from that corporation to create an independent company. A few years later that new company sold shares on the New York stock exchange. Steve’s piece of the equity was worth tens of millions. He had made it big and was lucky by all measures.

The point of this story is not to recast the careers of successful people who I met through work. The point is to discuss the role of luck in our existence. Life is not a linear experience. Our circumstances change, and often change fast. Life is also inherently unfair. As I told my son, life has ups and downs. I did not tell him that life was unfair. Like every parent, I do wish that if his life turns out to be unfair, that it happens to be unfair in his favor. That’s what luck is after all. And if life gives you lemons, just be glad that it didn’t give you something worse.

One day Bill was at dinner with one of the office blondes. He choked up on a piece of salad. He couldn’t stop coughing and went to see a doctor. I saw him at the office only once afterwards. When he told me his terminal diagnosis, I had to hold back tears. Bill’s luck had run out.

The same day, I remember going into the financial director’s office to share my initial shock about Bill’s sudden demise. The financial director, another lucky guy, was in disbelief. His name was John. He was a former investment banker from up North. Professionally successful, athletic, good-looking, fit. He lamented how unlucky Bill had turned out in the end and suggested that we should organize some uplifting event for Bill and the entire staff before the inevitable happens. Both John and I were lucky not to be in Bill’s shoes in that moment. We both meant well. At the time of our conversation, neither of us knew that John would suffer a terminal event months before Bill himself. John was driving his car on a trip to  Boston. He had a heart attack behind the wheel and drove into a wall at high speed. Life delivered a one-two punch and John was out. Bill called into the office and asked the staff to organize a nice memorial for John. A few months later, we had a memorial for Bill as well.

Steve’s luck ran out a few months after the other two. In the space of 9 months, Steve went from being a passionate runner, newlywed, semi-retired investor, envied by many, to being the subject of heart wrenching eulogies and one elaborate, luxury funeral service. It was then that I heard the phrase “all the lucky ones are dead”. The guy who said it was a former acquaintance of Bill, John and Steve from their previous careers. He knew all three of them independently. He had envied them and considered them to be very lucky indeed. Now they were gone. All the lucky ones are dead, is exactly what he said. It was so unfortunately true in that moment.

When I think about luck, I sometimes think about the passengers on the Titanic. That is, the passengers in the luxury cabins. The ones who paid small fortunes for the luxury experience. They were wealthy. They were healthy. They had the trappings of a good life. Being on the Titanic made them terribly unlucky. Poor situational luck could make every one of life’s accomplishments meaningless.

So how can I explain luck to my 10-year old? I really can’t. All I know is that luck can be there or not. Luck can even be malleable. But only to a degree. I could tell him that if something is not working out, he should not sweat it. Live your own life. Don’t get sucked up into someone else’s drama. You could be lucky tomorrow as long as you stick around and go through the motions which make up your own life. Growing old might be the greatest luck of all. Cross your fingers.

P.S. I changed some details and the names of the characters in the story, which is very much based on true events. The conversation with my 10-year old happened too. That conversation took place as we were heading out of town on a weekend trip. I had decided to take a brief detour and stop by a cemetery on the way, where one of the formerly lucky characters from the story was laid to rest. I go there once a year and leave flowers as a sign of respect and keeping the memory. The guy was very influential in my career and I am forever in his debt for a lot of the things that I know. This year, I just happened to have my family in tow. It turned out to be an opportunity to philosophize about luck with a 10 year old.