The Lucky Fool
Two men reach the same opportunity. One prepared for years. One stumbled in by chance. They seize the same prize.
They did not win the same thing.
The prepared man walks away with the opportunity and with everything building the readiness forged into him — the character, the resilience, the self-command. The prize is the smallest part of what he got.
The fool walks away with only the prize. Hollow. Unchanged. And dependent on a luck that will not come twice, because he never built the thing that could summon it again.
Do not envy the lucky. Their luck is a one-time withdrawal from an account they cannot refill.
Chase preparation, not the prize. The prize can be handed to a fool.
The man you become earning it cannot be handed to anyone.
