How did you go at Oz Lotto and Powerball last week? Didn’t win the millions you hoped for? Or even just the thousand dollars you actually do need right now?

Ahh well, I guess it’s time to head to the local pub.

It’s another bright sunny afternoon as you take the same three steps up to the brass handles of the double wooden doors and push through them. You’re greeted by the familiar smell of stale beer-soaked carpets and a wooden bar wiped down with an old dishwater soaked Chux-rag. There’s tobacco in these walls still – a reminder of back when the government didn’t force you outside and around the corner just to have a smoke. A couple of suits are filing out the doors behind you, having snuck in a quick beer with their pub meal over a lunchbreak. You see your mates waving and smiling at you, calling you over for the welcoming embrace of some playful sarcasm and slow banter about whose horse will win big today. You turn and look at your friend, the bartender, who greets you with his usual.

“G’day. How’ you today, John?”

“Yeh, good thanks. A midi for me thanks”.

I guess that’s how you know the difference between a regular and a visitor – a visitor doesn’t know that in a midi, your beer stays cooler to the last sip.

You feel a sense of belonging, warmth and acceptance here. This is a place free from the troubles of unemployment and the worry that brings. And even back when you were working, years before your redundancy, this was the one place where you could let go of work stress. For 25 years, this has been a place where you could feel free and without judgement. Simply enjoying a conversation with friends or enjoying some solitude. Just passing time with a midi of beer on the table in front of you.

After a few losses and wins on the horses, you take a moment to consider; all those negative thoughts you were having when you woke up, no longer worry you so much. No more voices saying

“I don’t have work”

“My kids don’t talk to me”

“I am living with mum and dad again at age 45”

“I am useless”

“What is this point of all of this?”

Outside seems darker than inside the pub now – the sun’s gone behind the nearby grey buildings and the pub is lit up in down-lights. More people are filing past the windows. Must be everyone clocking off work and heading back home just to get ready for the same thing tomorrow. You notice that you are really enjoying the banter of the new bubbly bartender who helps on the evening shift and you rather like how she looks at you as she pours you another lager.

Time to hit the pokies. With how good you’re feeling right now, you’re sure to do alright.

You slide in two fifties and a twenty, holding back a spare twenty in your wallet for drinks or food or something – not that you’ll need it when you spin up a big win in the next minute or two. The sounds, the bright lights; you haven’t won all that much, but you’ve played the machine well and made some good choices on red or black… and besides, you’re having fun.

You turn and look at your mates waving goodbye, a few hours must have passed. It’s 2AM in the morning. You are feeling tired, pretty unwell and a glance at your wallet shows no cash, only a bunch of ATM receipts. I gotta get home.

You stumble in, falling through your doorway, and you vaguely sense your elderly mother assisting you back into your bedroom, a weak hug as she whispers into your ear “goodnight, my angel”

For many people, this is life. It’s a life waiting to begin, and in the meantime, it’s just a day repeating over and over. A lotto ticket, a bet on the horses, a spin on the pokies “you have to be in it, to win it” they say. And that expression really is true – you do have to be in it to win it – the problem is that unless you’re the casino, gambling is not what you have to do in order to win. And unless you own the establishment, the bar is not where you have to be in order to win. And unless you have ten separate fake identities, each claiming Centrelink benefits, then unemployment is not how you have to live in order to win. Unfortunately, it so often is that you have to be in it for others to win it.

The story above is all too common when people look in the wrong places for a sense of belonging and a little bit of luck in life. And call me superstitious, but I’m actually a big believer in luck. I also believe that catching a lucky break is something that’s within everybody’s grasp. To tip the odds in your favour you don’t need to be a magician or to catch a leprechaun (please don’t catch a leprechaun – they don’t exist and if you think you have caught one, in reality you’ve most likely just kidnapped a child). Instead, the important thing to remember when it comes to luck is simply this:

The harder you work at something good in life, the more luck you’ll have.

By setting achievable, feasible practical short-term goals, having gratitude for what you’ve achieved, being adaptable, nurturing your strengths, and developing healthy habits, your fortune will lead you to live the lucky life as if you have just stumbled across the end of the rainbow and found a leprechaun with a pot of gold. (Again, I want to stress that leprechauns are not real, and that kidnapping is a crime).

Change your mindset, and your feelings and behaviours will change for the better. Or better yet, change your behaviours, and your feelings will change and so will your mindset. This is your life! No matter what you have experienced previously; bad, good, ugly or horrific, right now you can make your own luck if you choose to do so.

If our story above were to have a happy ending it would be this:

John wakes up the next morning and makes an appointment with his GP for a referral to a psychologist who helps him work through his addictions. He has decided it is time to start making his own luck with a team of health professionals on his side, rather then playing other people’s games in life where the odds are stacked against him.