Opportunity is one of those rare commodities that never seems to knock as often as it really should. One could almost argue that for large portions of most peoples’ lives, there's a marked absence of any sound even remotely resembling a knock.
We are a race bereft of things that should normally go right, but more often than not seem to veer off to the left.
Some of us pray for good fortune. We clasp our hands tightly together once a week in the hope that the words we speak reverently on hallowed ground will not fall on deaf ears.
We pray for cash and comfort. For health and happiness. For life and love. Anything, in fact, that can bulldoze away the lives we have, flatten the earth they stand on, and give us the chance to start all over again.
Some sit patiently, relying on the fickle finger of fortune to single them out, never thinking for a moment that all good things don’t necessarily come to those who wait.
Others strap on their boots with vigorous and mighty intent, stride out into the world and grab opportunity by the throat, hoping to strangle it into submission by the power of their own two hands.
Blessed are the self-made pioneers for they shall inherit more of the earth than any one else has – and God help anyone who stands in their way.
And then there are the lucky ones. The beautiful ones. The ones for whom everything goes right. The ones who live their lives to the beat of the Great Knocker of Fortune, thumping away in the background.
The ones who don’t ask but seem to get. Who don’t pray but seem to have every prayer they never said answered in spades.
I have a theory.
Buried deep inside the fabric of the human genome, curled up somewhere on a tiny little patch of DNA, is the Lucky Gene.
For a few of us, it’s always switched on. For too many, it’s always off. And for the rest of us, it’s a bit like a faulty connection. Sometimes there’s power…and other times it’s as dead as a dodo.
Until now, it’s been sat there doing, or not doing, its job to the best, or worst, of its ability. Untouched by human interference. Nature’s champion of predestination.
Enter gene therapy.
In the search to cure disease and treat life-threatening ailments, we have managed to poke around inside the matrix of life itself.
We have become the bringers and makers of miracles and it is glorious in all its medical possibilities. No gene will remain untouchable.
And that includes the Lucky Gene.
Before long, we will become the architects of our own fortune as well as the guardians of our own health.
No longer will the Lucky Gene be turned off. No longer will there be faulty connections. The Great Knocker of Fortune will be switched 100% full on, 24/7, 365 days a year. Every year of our lives. For everyone.
You know that old truth that says when it’s raining we wish for sun….and then when it’s sunshine all the time, we’d die for a nice little bit of rain? Well…
When everyone is lucky, the very meaning of the idea becomes devalued.
So here’s what I propose.
For one day a year we can have the Lucky Gene switched on. Say our Birthday. And on that one day we will be fabulously, unbelievably, life-changingly lucky. Then, at the stroke of midnight, we’ll go back to being sometimes lucky, most of the time not.
By all means lets cure diseases. Every single last goddamned rotten cursed one of them. But don’t take away our hope.
Please, leave the Lucky Gene alone.
See you in church next Sunday…
