I should be so lucky

In an attempt to save money I have entered gazillions of competitions. Maybe enough to make me a Comper. Hmmm, geeky.

Unfortunately, no wins have come through yet, however, I remains ridiculously confident that I will win things. I think this may be a legacy of Grandma repeatedly telling me I was lucky.

Mum (off stage, yelled): "there's no such thing as luck!"

However, my confidence in my luckiness is unfailing, despite my entries not yet yielding anything.

It seems though that this is a good personality trait to display. "The Luck Factor" by Richard Wiseman describes how people who believe they are lucky tend to get on better, and people who class themselves as unlucky tend to have a hard time of it.

He writes about a newspaper experiment in which people are asked to flick through a paper to count how many photos there are. On page 2 there was a big heading "there are 46 photos in the paper". The people who classed themselves as lucky noticed this, the unlucky ones didn't. And the unlucky ones also missed a 2nd message telling them to say to the investigator they'd read the 2nd notice and they'd get £200.

Wiseman (talk about a prophetic name, eh?) thought that the folk who felt lucky were more relaxed and open and more likely to see these good, incidental, oportunities and that this approach to life meant they came across more random meetings with people that ended up having a positive influence on their lives.

Does meeting someone through an internet dating site, your subscription having been set up by your slightly inebriated older sister sound random? And look at the lady (pictured left) she was lucky enough to get a free golf ball in her packet of fags!

Anyway, in the current financial climate you can bet your bottom dollar I'd have spotted the 2nd newspaper notice. I look forward to reporting my "comp" wins soon...!