There’s a phrase “luck is what happens when hard work meets opportunity”. I’ve condensed that into “Work hard. Get lucky” as one of the philosophies of my life. Why work hard?
Working hard represents the fundamental view that I control my life. I believe that by directing my energies purposefully, I can mould myself and thus the world around me . There’s so much to learn and so much to do, all I must do is make a nice timetable to finish all of it! Also, the more I’ve read about people who are the very best in any field, the more I’ve come to appreciate the value of the relentless pursuit in perfecting one’s craft.

“Nothing In This World Worth Having Comes Easy” - Dr. Bob Kelso

Why get lucky?

While “Work hard” paints a rather stoic picture of life, where you do must do X to achieve Y, a rather linear picture, getting lucky represents my fundamental belief in the randomness of life, sometimes playing in my favour, sometimes against. Contrary to most elementary science one gets taught, we know that the world is non-linear. The Pareto principle and Chaos theory tell us that randomness and unpredictability are the core tenets of life. Getting lucky also stands for the non-sensical parts of life, there’s a strong link between randomness and creativity. To find new associations and synthesise new ideas we must allow our minds to wander freely down paths that may or may not bear fruit, which essentially means allowing our minds to take random walks and trying to get lucky. And so you have it ladies and gentlemen - Work hard. Get lucky.