In the quiet town of Lalgudi, where small misfortunes arrived as regularly as the morning milkman—a sudden rain that spoiled a match, an unfair mark, a sharp word from a teacher—young Ramu had begun to feel that luck was always against him. When things went wrong he grew distressed and spent long hours turning the events over in his mind, as if distress itself could change what had already happened.
One evening on the veranda he spoke of this to his neighbour Venkatesh.
“Bad things keep coming from outside,” Ramu said. “I cannot stop them, and they leave me upset for the rest of the day.”
Venkatesh opened his copy of Marcus Aurelius and read a few clear lines:
“Bad luck is the unfortunate thing that can happen from outside—out of your control. So do not worry over it. What is within your control is the way you face those events without distress. That is good luck. Think of the waves beating against a rock. The waves striking the rock are bad luck. The rock bearing the blows valiantly is good luck. As a human being you bear what comes by remaining fair, high-minded, honest, moral, and self-reliant. Luck itself will beat against you; you cannot control it. But if you can bear it every time—through reason, through training of the mind, and through steady habits—then you have turned bad luck into good.”
Ramu sat quietly, picturing the rock that stood firm while the waves came and went.
The next day a small wave arrived. During a class test the boy beside him was given extra time while Ramu was not. The old feeling of unfairness rose at once. Instead of feeding the distress, he remembered the rock. The external event was the wave—outside his control. His task was to meet it without losing fairness or inner balance. He finished his own paper calmly and did not speak bitterly afterwards. The distress that usually stayed for hours faded more quickly.
He began to practise the same approach with other ordinary misfortunes. When rain cancelled a game, he used the time to read. When a classmate received praise he himself had hoped for, he noticed the first sting of envy and chose not to let it grow. Each time he returned to the simple question: Is this within my control? If not, my work is only to bear it well—fairly, honestly, and without unnecessary agitation.
He also began small daily habits that strengthened the mind: a short morning walk, a few minutes of quiet sitting, and an evening review of how he had met the day’s waves. Slowly the rock-like quality grew. The external events continued—some mild, some sharper—but they no longer washed him away.
Weeks later he sat again with Venkatesh as the evening light softened.
“I still cannot stop the waves,” Ramu said. “But I am learning that good luck is not the absence of difficulty. It is the ability to face what comes without distress. When I stay fair and steady, the same event that once upset me for a whole day now passes more lightly. The rock is beginning to hold.”
Venkatesh smiled. “That is the practical wisdom Marcus Aurelius offers. Bad luck will keep arriving from outside. Your freedom lies in the way you receive it. Keep training the mind through reason and small habits. In time you will meet whatever comes with a steadiness that no wave can finally overcome.”
In the soft dusk of Lalgudi, while many still cursed their luck and remained troubled long after the event had passed, young Ramu walked home with a quieter step. He had begun to understand that the waves would never stop, yet the rock of a well-trained mind could bear them. And in that daily practice of meeting misfortune without distress—fairly, honestly, and with self-reliance—he discovered a form of good luck that no external chance could take away.