Fifty

If my life had gone according to plan, I wouldn't have had to work a single day. My dad didn't really work, even into his twenties. Born into a wealthy family, my course was set, but routes split and meander.

Five years later, on a small boat in the middle of the South China Sea, my dad worked hard for his family's survival escaping from Vietnam. Maybe it was the Gulf of Thailand? It's hard to know when life veers off course.

In Malaysia, the refugee camp was home, and our house in Saigon was just a structure, a framework of how something used to be. Soon enough, Malaysia was another reminder of "how something used to be," and the United States of America was home.

In the years to come, there would be struggles and moments of feeling "less than." There would be moments of hope, that feeling you get when you say the words, "when I." "When I finish college, I'm going to..." "When I get this job, I'm going to..." "When I do this..." "When I do that..."

Hope realized becomes happiness.

I've had my share of happy realizations, and I've had my share of struggles, and I'm delighted to let them all live together in me. I can make more happiness, but I can't make more good luck, and the best kind of good luck is the kind you accept as good luck, even though they don't appear to be luck.

I'm lucky my dad had the funds to hire a boat and captain to plan an escape from Vietnam. I'm fortunate the boat "ride" to Malaysia was short, and we didn't get lost at sea, starved, drowned, or captured by pirates. I won the lottery when we ended up in the United States, the best country to put hope to work.

Yes, it is unlucky to lose your country, to escape in the middle of the night on a small boat with no assurance of ever getting to your destination (wherever that was), and to arrive in a foreign country to start life over with no money. All these unlucky things turned into excellent luck.

Today I turn 50, and I can't imagine being luckier.