People Who’ve Experienced These 11 Incredibly Rare Things Are Luckier Than The Average Person
Dean Drobot | CanvaMost people tend to think of luck as a stable trait. You either have it, or you don’t. Yet a big part of luck is perspective and how you see yourself in the larger scheme of the universe. While an unlucky person sees losing their job as proof of how bad their luck is, a lucky person sees the same situation as a sign they’re ready to embrace whatever changes are coming their way. However you define success and happiness, if you’ve experienced these things, you’re luckier than an average person.
People who’ve experienced these incredibly rare things are really lucky:
1. You've had an emotionally supportive family
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If you have an emotionally supportive family, you’re luckier than most people. All too often, people are raised in families where they don’t feel safe as their authentic selves. They may have transactional parents who take more than they give, or hyper-critical parents who equate love with meeting standards set impossibly high. Having a family who sees you for who you are and accepts you with their whole hearts means you’re luckier than an average person.
It’s easy to stay stuck in toxic family patterns. As life and career management consultant Ruth Schimel points out, “Families are complex mixes of joys, opportunities, and conflict. Many families have unaddressed resentments, misunderstandings, and unpleasant realities, full of repeated patterns of behavior that keep people static, often frustrated, and unrealized, perhaps adrift.”
Yet family conflicts don’t always lead to estrangement, and learning how to open up and hold space for each other can help families heal. Schimel shares touchpoints people can use to “reset communication for a more authentic family connection. Effective, sincere communication is key to improving situations and progress,” Schimel explains, noting that staying connected to your family often means being emotionally vulnerable in ways you might not be used to.
There’s no such thing as a perfect family, but having a family who gives you unconditional support and love without any strings attached shows just how lucky you are.
2. You’re in good health
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Being mentally and physically healthy means you’re luckier than most people. So much of our health is out of our control, shaped by genes we didn’t choose. What’s healthy for one person doesn’t always fit someone else’s view of health, but feeling good in your body and having mental health support are signs you’re luckier than average.
Being the healthiest version of yourself means tapping into how you want to live day to day. This might mean cutting caffeine out of your diet, or it might mean drinking a cup of coffee in your robe and slippers every morning before work. It might mean walking quietly in the woods, running through a crowded city, or dancing alone in your living room.
Our bodies and minds are inherently connected, which is why a holistic approach to your health matters. When you’re in good health, whatever that means to you, you’re luckier than an average person.
3. You have financial security
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If you’ve experienced financial security, you’re luckier than most people. The economy is a force beyond our control, as shown by the recent rise in inflation while wages stay stagnant. While money can't buy happiness or love, it can put food on the table and help you live in comfort. Financial security can feel like luck, while financial literacy rests on many complex factors, including how you were raised to think about money.
Certified financial coach Pegi Burdick reveals, “How we spend money and why is not random. It comes from issues in our childhood. Some of these are visible, such as never having received an allowance. Others are more subtle, like messages about feeling unworthy. Feeling undeserving is one of the biggest distorted belief systems we inherit."
Burdick helps people separate shame from their spending habits, noting that taking ownership of debt and cutting nonessential spending can bring people to more secure ground. “Only through thinking ahead can you harness your spending and give yourself the control you need to eliminate anxiety about your finances,” she concludes.
4. You have access to education
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If you've had access to education, you’re luckier than an average person. Having the opportunity to pursue higher education and the funds to get through school shows how lucky you are. Many highly intelligent people don’t have direct access to college- or graduate-level education, which can shape a person’s career path and income.
Devoting time to learning and expanding your worldview is a privilege not everyone has. Yet college isn’t the only path to success or a new perspective. While some generations, like millennials, were taught that college was the only way forward, younger generations, like Gen Z, are forging a new path without necessarily earning a college degree. For Gen Z, 40% don’t equate a college degree with future success, so they’re exploring other ways to educate themselves, like vocational training, to land a high-paying blue-collar job.
According to the Pew Research Center, 49% of Americans say it’s less important now than it was in the past to get a college degree in order to land a well-paying job; 47% believe that going to a four-year college is only worth the cost if you don’t have to take out loans and go into major debt to do so; 22% said that college is worth it, even with loans; and 29% said that a college education isn’t worth the price tag at all. Whatever a person’s view is on the connection between college and their future career, spending years learning about the world and examining their place within it is a true gift.
5. You have nourishing friendships
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If you’ve experienced deep, lasting friendships, you’re luckier than an average person. Making friends isn’t easy, especially as you leave childhood behind. On your journey to find people who will stay in your life forever, you’re bound to meet fake friends along the way, but that pain pales in comparison to the love and nourishment a true friendship holds.
According to psychology professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, having friends is a matter of life and death. “When people are low in social connection, because of isolation, loneliness, or poor-quality relationships, they face an increased risk of premature death,” she explains.
Strong social connections predict a long, fulfilling life. There have been 38 worldwide research studies proving that the support provided by high-quality adult friendships protects against major mental health issues, like anxiety and depression. Even one good friend can change the course of your life. There’s something magical to talking for hours about nothing and laughing so hard you can’t remember why you started. If you have friendships that nourish your soul and make your heart feel full, you’re luckier than most.
6. You’ve traveled the world
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If you’ve traveled, whether it’s somewhere close to home or halfway around the world, you’re luckier than most people. Travel is a definitively life-altering experience, and not everyone has the resources to access it. Seeing a part of the world different from the one you live in pushes you out of your comfort zone, literally and figuratively.
Going to a place you’ve never been before can be mind-blowing. Traveling is fun and exciting, and it also serves an even larger purpose: it lets us meet strangers and see how they live, an act that inevitably reveals our common humanity. It’s easy to keep people we don’t know in rigidly defined boxes, but traveling bridges gaps between worlds and lets us see how similar our hearts really are.
7. You’re in a healthy romantic relationship
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If you’ve experienced a healthy romantic relationship, you’re luckier than an average person. We’re taught from a young age that falling in love is a fairy tale; just wait for that one special person to sweep you off your feet and carry you to your happily ever after. But in reality, we quickly learn that successful partnerships take work, and nourishing, healthy love isn’t a given.
Life coach Mitzi Bockmann says a crucial step to building a healthy relationship when nobody taught you how is believing you deserve love. She touches on the ways having an insecure attachment style can derail a relationship, asking, “Do you believe you deserve to be loved? Do you let in partners who want to love you, or do you push them away in favor of partners who treat you poorly? Do you worry your partner will leave you because you aren’t good enough?”
Bockmann reveals the ultimate truth: we all deserve love. It doesn’t matter that you are flawed and imperfect. It doesn’t matter that your family of origin didn’t model healthy love. What matters is that you’re here and you’re you, and that’s entirely enough.
8. You have help when you need it
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If you can get help when you need it, you’re luckier than most people. It could be something small, like a ride to the airport, or something more serious, like someone offering to watch your kids when you go to work or organizing a meal train when you’re sick. Community support isn’t guaranteed, and if you have it, you’re luckier than the average person.
Getting out of your own head and asking for help can be hard, but Xuan Zhao, a social psychologist at Stanford University, says people are more willing to help than we imagine. “There are several common reasons why people struggle to ask for help,” she says. “Some people may fear that asking for help would make them appear incompetent, weak, or inferior. Others may be concerned about burdening and inconveniencing others.”
“These concerns may feel more relevant in some contexts than others, but they are all very relatable and very human,” she adds. “The good news is those concerns are oftentimes exaggerated and mistaken.”
Zhao explains that throughout her research, “We consistently observed that help-seekers underestimated how willing strangers and even friends would be to help them and how positive helpers would feel afterward, and overestimated how inconvenienced helpers would feel. People want to help, but they can’t help if they don’t know someone is suffering or struggling, or what the other person needs and how to help effectively."
9. You can follow your passions
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If you can pursue your passion projects, you’re luckier than the average person. Often, the challenges of getting through a day in one piece keep us from doing what we really love. Bills to pay and meals to make. Emails to send and meetings to sit through can drain anyone’s energy and limit their capacity to follow their passions.
Having the time and space to do what you want, just for yourself, means you’re luckier than an average person. As life coach Ronnie Ann Ryan explains, “The end goal of self-care is to show yourself love. When you take time just for yourself, you are demonstrating self-love. If you do a creative project, you give that part of your mind the freedom to express itself so you are heard, at least by yourself. All self-care options lead to honoring the unique being you are, your right to exist, taking care of yourself, and making yourself happy."
10. You have stable housing
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If you’ve had a stable place to live, you’re luckier than the average person. A roof over your head and a sense of physical safety are essential for survival, and people without secure housing struggle to survive, let alone thrive.
A 2024 study looked into the effects of housing insecurity on adolescent health and well-being. Researchers followed participants from age one to age 15, defining three trajectories of housing insecurity: secure, moderately insecure, and highly insecure. They found that adolescents experiencing moderately and highly insecure housing had decreased odds of being in good health, along with reporting significantly higher symptoms of anxiety.
Safety and a soft place to land are rights that everyone should be able to rely on, but too many people in this world don’t have a home to call their own. If you do have a home, you can focus on flourishing, which can make you luckier than the average person.
11. You feel content with your life
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If you feel content with your life, you’re luckier than most people. Happiness can be hard to achieve, and the weight of our struggles can bury us. It’s lucky to be satisfied with the path you’re on, yet part of that luck and contentment comes from how you see your place in the world.
According to psychology professor Richard Wiseman, how lucky or unlucky you are is rooted in your perspective and the actions you take. While unlucky people might feel like they can’t ever catch a break, “lucky people are always in the right place at the right time,” Wiseman notes. “I think a big part of that, not all of it, but a big part of it is the way in which they’re thinking and where they’re behaving.”
Wiseman reveals that people who believe in their own good luck tend to see that belief play out in their lives. When it comes to hitting a roadblock or a rough time, “the lucky people knew how to bounce back. The unlucky ones tended to get dragged down by that failure,” he explains.
Wiseman shares small, actionable steps anyone can take to make themselves feel lucky, starting with writing a gratitude list and recognizing all the ways you were lucky at the end of each week. He also says that luck depends on “being a flexible thinker and having a flexible approach to life. Anything like that will mean you’re more open to opportunities when they come along. So these are very simple things everyone can do, but they have quite a large impact.".
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
