As I sit on the grass on my front lawn, enjoying a light lunch and a cup of black tea with milk, the sun hits me pleasantly in the face. And another thing hits me. How did I get so lucky?

I wasn’t just lucky today, or yesterday, or part of last year. I’ve been lucky since the day I was born. But what is luck, really? A newborn baby has no knowledge that allows it to put value on the things it has. And even when you’re grown up, to feel lucky is a personal perspective rather than an objective fact. So, what does it mean to feel lucky? Why do I feel lucky? For me, it’s a feeling of being rich in many things: in family, in love, in having a nice home to live in. And it’s about freedoms that I enjoy, that I try not to take for granted. I’m truly free to choose my own path. I’ve also learned from history that I’m lucky to have been born in a free, democratic society.

Luck is also a general feeling I have all the time of being surrounded by little luxuries. I have a car with which I can go anywhere, a garden where I can grow anything, a good computer to work and play on, access to the open internet where I can learn anything and talk to anyone, a body that is healthy, that can run and write and chop vegetables on a daily basis. There is the sun shining on my face in the front yard, and the hammock under the little olive tree. When you consider that all people can enjoy the sun, I guess my feeling of being lucky might be nothing more than a simple joy to be alive, and gratitude at having something so commonplace as the sun’s warmth. Because I fully enjoy these little things, and am constantly aware that I have a surplus of great things, it makes it so much easier to deal with life’s obstacles when they arise. When those things bring a cloud over my happiness, I know it’s just a temporary setback. The cloud will go away; it always does.

Am I stupidly happy about little things? Maybe. Probably. But I wouldn’t change for anything.