I never did fancy anything that was born from more luck than skill. It was a gamble to me and I did not believe in luck and favours. It was either I was working my ass off to make something decent, not in terms of probability but with certainty in what I was doing and what I stood to gain, or I was not doing it all.
Source
This was why I had rebuffed the idea of cryptocurrency mining despite being good enough to be able to generate hashes before the stipulated times given to generate new blocks.
Linda had talked about how it sometimes took days or weeks or even months for one to find the blocks and I had scoffed.
"It'll probably take me years to find blocks that I can even generate the hash for because I don't even believe in luck to begin with."
I had stated dryly.
She didn't like that I had sounded that way because I always ought to speak positive things. It was an amusing concept of hers, one that believed that good things came when they were declared, and bad things came when they were ' called forth,' in her words.
I had taken time to explain to her that the concept did not apply to me because I did not even believe it.
Mills called later to inform me of ' Cloud mining’ since I did not even have the required hardware to start mining the cryptocurrency he thought would be just perfect. Like the first time, I rebuffed the idea again.
"Come on, man. You ought to give it a try. Don't just shut off things that have the potential to change your life forever."
He grumbled.
" Don't you think you are trying too much?" I asked him.
He was not listening to me.
" That is not the way to go. You are not even receptive to new ideas and that sucks like…"
" Listen, mining is not foreign to me. It is the fact that you are projecting it to be the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity that upsets me, Mills."
I said. He ended the call. I knew what he was going to do. He was going to dress up and drive down to my apartment so we could have a proper conversation. He had no idea how draining that was for me.
It was worse when he came hours later with his fiance, Linda. They wanted to support me with everything they had and in every possible way. But they wanted me to start everything they wanted me to. They were my friends and I knew they meant well for me, but it took a bit more prodding before I agreed.
" If it seems too frustrating, I'm getting right out of it," I said grumpily after agreeing to start mining.
" Well, then we would know you had given it a try at least. That would not make me so mad." Linda said.
She seemed to have too much faith in me and what she expected to happen. It was the first time she had agreed to the assertion that I could actually be the unlucky guy and then I would have to give up mining.
I had generated six blocks and earned the points all in a night and I was beginning to float in a whirlpool of excitement. It was hard to contain it when I could be sharing with Linda and Mills.
They would be happy for me because as Linda had predicted, I did not exhaust the first three days trying to find opportunities, they had appeared easily and I had proven even smarter than I thought I was, getting the hash because my hardware was efficient enough and I was too eager that I always seemed to appear the lucky one.
I was a solo miner and I wondered what other miners, those who were in the mining pool precisely could be on to. Maybe things were much easier for them.
Or maybe they did not have it as easy as I seemed to be having it. Linda and Mills came back by the weekend and wanted to go out and have an elaborate meal in an expensive restaurant on my account.
There would have been no better way to show appreciation to them and so I agreed immediately. Mills did not stop talking about how important it was for people to be receptive to new ideas which would without doubt change their lives like mine had, and his fiance did not stop talking about faith and luck.
I was beginning to agree with Linda. Perhaps, it was not just skill but luck that had helped me.
"You are one lucky thing, Leo. You amaze me so much and I'm so happy!" She said for the umpteenth time as I received the bill.
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