There is a common saying that the harder you work, the luckier you get, I'm not the kind of person who sits around and waits for luck to come around, just like faith without work is meaningless, I believe luck comes to us when we are prepared for it, also there are times when we put in so much effort into things and we don't get a return as we expect, and other times we put in the effort and get expected result, what about those times we don't expect anything because we believe we didn't put as much effort, but still got lucky.
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Hard work pays
When I tell people that I newly got into the fashion designing world when COVID started in the year 2020, they are always surprise because of how far I've come since then, I know of some people that are still in the learning stage and can't make most complicated design even though we started together, when I make some designs now and post them on my social media handle, my boss whom I started with always get amazed and wonder how I was able to design it, even though she didn't teach me the techniques as I spent just less than 5 month with her and during that period all she taught was introduction to fashion designing, from the basic knowledge I got from her, I was able to further more by downloading lots of tutorial videos online, and I didn't stop there, I practiced hard day and night, especially if any design catches my interest, I won't rest till I finally figure out the technique to design mine, then fashion designing was a creative pathway for me to spend my leisure time but when people started seeing my designs and loved them, gradually I started getting clients who are willing to pay for me to make them a dress, and that was how I ventured into the business part of fashion that pays me today, not by luck but through hard work.
The stroke of luck
I've never been one to believe in luck especially when it comes to gambling, I believe gamblers just spend their entire time wasting money after one stroke of luck, the reason why a lot of them are always broke, instead of investing what they got the first time and move on or just try their luck occasionally, rather they spend the rest of their lives waiting for luck to come their way while betting their hard-earned money and running into debts and loss.
Well, I was lucky once with lottery, I woke up one fine morning, after having an interesting dream where my husband gave me a bundle of cash in the dream, mind you during that time things were a bit hard financially with us, and I was looking forward to getting some money from him for a project which was not forthcoming, maybe that was why I dreamt of him giving me money, I was angry it was just a dream when I woke up. I visited my mum that same day and my sisters started narrating their funny dreams, I remembered mine and also started explaining to my mum and sister the dream I had, of how my husband gave me 50,000 naira in 1000 naira notes, then one of them said it could be a lotto number, We just laughed it off, then my mum became serious and told me to try my luck, she had heard stories of how someone had a similar dream and got lucky when she tried the dream number since there is no harm in trying, I decided to give it a try, my mum did too, while my sisters made fun of us, I asked the attendant when the result would be out and she told me to come back in two hours, without putting much hope, I played the number 1 and 50 for me and my mum and was given two tickets.
Two hours passed and I felt reluctant to go check the result, after procrastinating for a while I decided to go check, on arriving, the lady attendant was grinning ear to ear and said she had been looking forward to me coming back, that I had won with the two tickets I played, she showed me the winning numbers and I saw 1 and 50 among other numbers, wow!I was shocked and couldn't believe my luck, me and my mum had won 50,000 naira each, it was a lucky day indeed, not by any hard work just a dream number come true.
Lessons
From both experiences, I would rather work hard and believe it's going to pay me someday, even though I got lucky with the dream number, that doesn't always mean it will happen often, and I should just go and start sleeping waiting for another dream number, haha that's going to be a total waste of time, for me, it was just pure luck. I've also been lucky in my line of work on several occasions, I would rather choose to be hardworking and get lucky than just wait around for luck without doing anything.