Fortuosity: Finding Opportunity

Sometimes castles fall to the ground

But that’s where four-leaf clovers are found.

— Richard B. Sherman and Robert M. Sherman, “Fortuosity” (from The Happiest Millionaire)

Have you ever seen something in your life crash?  Have you invested a lot of energy in something, only to see it fall apart?  Most of us have had that experience.  When that happens, where are you looking?  Are you looking at the ruins or are you looking at what else is around you?

Recently, Suzanne and I heard this song on a radio program we enjoy.  There is a great video of it (the opening scene of the movie The Happiest Millionaire) on You Tube, with Tommy Steele singing this song.  It’s snappy, fun, and right on point.  As Richard and Robert Sherman (who composed it) noted, when castles fall to the ground, you find four-leaf clovers.  Four-leaf clovers are considered good-luck charms.  This is “fortuosity” – which the Sherman brothers (Walt Disney’s favorite songwriters) define as “fortuitious little happy happenstances.”  They go on to tell us,

“‘Round the corner, under a tree,

Good fortune’s waiting.  Just wait and see.”

Where in the wreckage is your four-leaf clover?  Where is your good-luck charm in the chaos that sometimes envelops life?  Can you see it?

I am sure many of us know someone like a neighbor of ours, who is convinced that “They” (whoever “They” are) are never going to let “people like her” get anywhere in life.  People like this seem to scrape by.  They never seem to have enough.  They can see only the wreckage.  If they would look, they would see the clover.  But they never look.

How often do you focus on what is going wrong instead of the blessings in your life?  Remember, one of the fundamental principles of the Universe is that what you focus on expands and what you do not diminishes.

Instead of focusing on the wreckage, find your four-leaf clover.  Pick it up.  Let it be the sign of a new and exciting beginning.  You are not here to suffer, you are here to thrive.  And remember that “every bit of life is lit by fortuosity.”

-Tim Phares, RScP