Happy-go-lucky?

Reader question:

Please explain “go-lucky” in this sentence: Marisa’s personality “color code” is purple meaning she is happy, go-lucky, carefree, engaging, adaptive and cheerful.

My comments:

In fact, happy-go-lucky, with hyphen, is one word. Take a look into the origin of happy and you’ll discover that “happy” and “lucky” actually go hand in hand.

They were born a pair. Happy, you see, has its roots in “hap”, as in happen, happenstance, mishap, etc., meaning by chance or fortune.

Or luck?

Exactly.

Literally, happy-go-lucky means one would go where happenstance or the wheel of fortune takes them.

Metaphorically speaking, one who is happy-go-lucky is easy going and carefree, not giving a care about the future (with all the complexities involved). They dare let it be, knowing what will be will be.

In our example, her personality “color code” being purple, Marisa is happy-go-lucky – carefree, happy and cheerful.

Perhaps a person who trusts everything to his or her fortune and luck ought to be happy, as in happy life, in the sense of enjoying life and feeling contented.

Anyways, be happy, don’t worry.

Happily, there are many media examples of people who are, luckily, that way:

1. It was two years ago that Matt Thompson met Helen Stephens, a freelance model. His plan was to go to Epping Forest and take shots of her against autumn leaves. He is a professional photographer, and Helen still has a picture he took that day on her mobile. She looks beautiful but zapped: “I was lying down because I was tired,” she laughs. There is no puzzle about why he picked her for the job – the unsullied beauty, the porcelain skin and autumnal hair. And it was on that day – before they began a romantic relationship – that she mentioned she had epilepsy, a condition that affects 65 million people worldwide.

In the UK, 600,000 people – one in 103 – has epilepsy. And – extraordinary statistic – 87 new cases in this country are diagnosed every day. Yet in spite of its prevalence, most people know little about it, and Helen did not make a big deal of it that day. She would not have wanted it to define her. Besides, she is anything but a moaner.

...

Helen’s seizures are brought on by intense emotion, “when I am over-excited or very blue”. She is investigating whether the mood changes are “auras – warning signs. Some people see pretty colours, others have a distinct taste in their mouths.” Whatever the verdict, Helen will work with it – she is plucky. Yet it is a shock when the last entry in the book lurches into the news that the relationship with Matt is over. They are still friends but she tells me she is “devastated”. “One moment we were discussing children's names, the next I was having a seizure and Matt couldn’t handle it any more. That was such a shock – I’m still getting over it but feel confident about new relationships. I’ve always been happy-go-lucky…”

- How I faced up to epilepsy, by Kate Kellaway, The Observer, March 9, 2017.

2. For some insane reason, many people believe that entrepreneurs have life all figured out. That we are happy go lucky all of the time and our business is full of rainbows that pop out magical Skittles. They seem to think that we don’t know what it’s like to doubt ourselves. They believe we don’t understand that feeling of not knowing which direction to go. They think we are sitting back just watching the bucks roll in with no cares or stresses.

Well as much as I’d like that to be true, it’s not even close to reality. The reality is some of us are figuring things out as we go, which is great because we get to come back and teach our tribes the RIGHT way to do things. Honestly, if I can help someone eliminate over half of the mistakes I’ve made in my business, then I’ve certainly served my purpose. Sometimes we are more confused than not, and sometimes even we lack clarity.

There are times that we doubt ourselves. (Insert shameful gasp here.) There have been times when we questioned if entrepreneurship was for us. However, the big difference between successful entrepreneurs and those just faking it until they make it is we know the value of not giving up. We know what lies behind curtain number one, and that’s the life we’ve imagined for ourselves.

Entrepreneurship isn’t easy. If it were, everyone would be doing it. But it’s totally worth it. Here are 5 reasons you should keep pushing through even when times get hard.

- 5 Reasons You Should Keep Pushing Past Your Doubts, HuffingtonPost.com, August 28, 2017.

3. For her 100th birthday last year, Joyce Fisher apparently had one wish. She wanted the Dreamboys, the unnaturally buff troupe of male strippers, to visit her residential care home in Ipswich – or so Lyn, one of the staff, tells me on the phone as she walks to Joyce’s room. When Joyce comes on the line, I ask if this is true. She laughs. “I didn’t!” I can hear Lyn in the background saying, “I asked you what you wanted for your birthday and you said The Full Monty. You wanted all the men to strip off for you.”Joyce giggles. She had a visit from two Ipswich Town footballers instead, which, as a lifelong fan, she loved. (They kept their clothes on.)

In reaching her 100th birthday, Joyce is obviously unusual – but not as unusual as she would once have been. According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of people aged 100 or more has quadrupled over the last two decades, and there are now a record number of centenarians in the UK: 14,570 at the last count. In 2017, 850 people reached 105, and more generally, life expectancy has increased by 13 weeks a year since the early 1980s for males and 9.5 weeks a year on average for females.

Centenarians are often asked for health advice, for tips on how to reach old age (inevitably, it seems, they have indulged at least lightly in all the drinking or smoking you’re supposed to avoid). But they are rarely asked about what they have learned about how best to live. What can we relative youngsters learn about how we should spend our time? I’ve been tracking down and speaking to centenarians in person, over email or on shouty phone calls (for those who are hard of hearing), to see what they recommend. What have they most enjoyed? What do they most regret? And what are their secrets for a fulfilled life? (Not surprisingly, most of those I’ve spoken to have been women; in 2017 the gender ratio for centenarians was 588 women for every 100 men, although this was down from 828 women for every 100 men in 2002.)

Most of those I speak to are also strikingly happy, but that doesn’t mean they have never wished their circumstances had been different. Joyce, 101, was bright and passed her 11-plus, going on to work as a clerk in the corn merchants in Norfolk during the second world war. She would have liked more of a career, she says. “I nearly did. During that period they asked me to go for an interview in the Foreign Office as a secretary. My boss phoned up to say I couldn’t go because I worked in food” (a reserved occupation, which meant Joyce was exempted from enlisting). “Also, my mother had two sons already abroad, one in the war, and the other, we didn’t know where he was. So they were not going to let me go. I often wonder what would have happened, who I’d have met. It wasn’t meant to be.”

She also wishes she had had children, but that was the choice she and her husband made. When their relationship started he was married to someone else and they lived together for 10 years until they could get married – they didn’t want to have a child out of wedlock. “In those days, it was the shame; you were looked down upon. So we made up our minds that we wouldn’t have children until we got married, and it was a bit late then. But I have wonderful nephews and nieces.” Does she regret abiding by society’s rules? “No,” she says with certainty, “we didn’t want to bring them up until we got married.”

She would have liked to have done more travelling, though she and her husband did once spend eight weeks touring Europe in a caravan. And she wishes she had kept in touch with friends. “I wish I had asked my mother more about her father. I never asked about past family. When you’re young, you’re not interested. It’s when you get old like me you wish you had asked.”

Her advice for younger people is “not to worry about things, although you’re only human, you can’t help it. But on the whole I was happy-go-lucky, I enjoyed life. We’re only here for a short time. We’re given our own will to live as we want and it’s up to us to live properly.” She hasn’t wasted time, she says. “In spite of everything, I had a good marriage. I was engaged and that fell through, then I met my husband. He was married, but unhappy. I was unhappy. And we made each other happy.”

- How to live to 100 and be happy (by those who have done it!), TheGuardian.com, August 27, 2017.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.