Homeschool mom: You are NOT Lucky

"Oh, you homeschool. I never got to do that for my child. I was actually working." Says the snide family member or friend working to get under your skin. Or are they? As this school year ramped up for my family so too did the accusations that what I do either is beautiful fantastic work, isn't work at all, is teaching and trailblazing, isn't teaching (I guess I'm just pretending?), and more! I was hit with a wave of inspiration to write on this. It turns out we use words in some pretty dynamic ways. Luck is used interchangeably with gratitude but that's not all. It can also be used to imply that somehow, by chance all of this homeschool stuff just happened to fall out of the sky and into your lap. Take a good look at anyone who you look up to that has achieved a worthwhile goal through hard work. Is there anything lucky about that at all?

"You can have it all while doing it all and it's all by pure chance!"

~People who have never homeschooled~

Perhaps they had people helping them or cheering them on. Would that be luck or would that be the consistent areas of anyone's story? We all have those who hate us and those who love us. That is why I want to make it clear as the school year starts up that you are NOT lucky! Perhaps you are grateful for your opportunities, but you're not sacrificing to have them? You're not working hard to accept what you DO have because you want to be a successful mother and guide to your children? We oftentimes lose ourselves in the meaning of our emotion and so words get convoluted and murky. It is my mission to create a crystal-clear vision on this. You are working towards an incredible goal- one that many others turn away from, even when the opportunity presents itself right in front of them.

"What you do helps your family so much, but it is also such a financial burden. You're so great for doing that but what about socialization?"

~4D Chess playing uncle at the summer cookout~

I LOVE what I do. I push for and lift up what I do. I feel incredibly blessed to work hard so I can be home with my kids and grow with them at their pace into their interests. Love for what I do and love for my children is what drives my hands to work though. Not luck. Love is what is pushing me though these last bits at 10:47 PM when my baby girl is sleeping, and I could be catching some sleep with her. Instead, I choose to build this blog. This is definitely me working, not something happening by chance. Yet I do feel overwhelming gratitude, a deep connection to community, and a call to go on seeking service. To live a life with a cause to have an effect. I am on fire with what I do. I absolutely am blessed. But lucky? Not even close.

There's many times when writing our blessings in stone and our problems in sand serves to aid us in seeing things as they are. It opens our eyes and gives more to us when we are lost in our own emotions. We need to lean into gratitude especially when things are low. This is true for anyone who has applied it. Yet I have noticed a trend where the words 'grateful' and 'lucky' are interchanged as if they have the same meaning. Luck is a word that is used to describe something that happens to someone by absolute chance. This is something that could never have been predicted, like winning the lottery or stumbling upon some rare archaeological find on a hike. That is luck.

Being 'lucky' alludes that people just wake up one day in the land of success.

A study published in the Scandanavian Journal of Psychology found that "The term “lucky" was frequently seen to imply a comparison process, sometimes expressing gratitude (“It is lucky I have a family”) and at other times envy (“it is lucky you have a job”)." There's an expression of good luck implying gratitude but also an expression of good luck implying envy." The same can be said for bad luck implying concern or impression. When we're feeling lucky it is often because we are also feeling apprehensive. Think about luck in the sense of winning, when we are on a 'lucky streak' we know that it will eventually come to an end. We have all seen a friend or family member try to rebuild that lucky streak only to realize that it will be a long game of probability before that one lucky streak is repeated. When we see ourselves as blessed and filled with gratitude, we know we are tapped into something limitless. When we see ourselves as lucky, we know that lucky streak will end.

Is working hard towards a worthy and attainable goal just simply luck? Is setting goals yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily just a product of pure happenstance? In psychology there is something called attribution bias and it works out like this: when good things happen to us, we think it has to do with our own goodness. Yet when we have negative things happen to us, we blame outside circumstances. When it comes to other people though, usually we reverse this. Anything that we perceive to be as good in their lives we will see as granted from outside circumstances. Yet if we see someone else suffering (particularly someone close) we will blame their own perceived shortcomings rather than attempt to connect. Basically each of us is radically built to underestimate any form of luck or chance. There is so much that we do not choose in life that at least some of it has to be luck. Whether it's place of birth, or parents, or many other things. We all walk a thin line.

With this in mind, I want to bear down on that fact. Gratitude, like patience is a virtue we know to be useful. What of virtues though? These also are skills one must work hard to develop. If someone is grateful, then they are generally a person who does not rely on luck. Yet not each one of us will take the time to cultivate gratitude, as it at times is reflective of a robotic 'chop wood, carry water' theme. Though there is vast reward, in the beginning it is not always 'fun' to practice gratitude. However, unexpectedly winning something you didn't work hard for is always going to be fun. We each can extend gratitude into other areas and aspects of life. As a homeschool mom, I am often reminded how 'lucky' I am to do what I do. I think we can each make our dream life regardless of how the method may look at the time of launch if you keep working towards a goal that is worthwhile you will attain it. That saying to others "you're so lucky" is an attempt to minimize our own suffering/story and serve as an excuse so we do not have to challenge ourselves to create the future we want. I'd love to know- what do you think?