I believe in karma. And luck. And those pass it forward situations that look so perfect on commercials. I look for four leaf clovers. I plan for worst case scenarios. When I find a penny on the street, I turn it heads-up so the next person can find their lucky penny. I eat lucky charms for breakfast. I get upset when my horoscope tells me I will not find my true love.

I’ve always considered myself an unlucky person. No matter what I do to counter my luck everything that could go wrong always does. Perhaps the almighty Zeus zapped me with his lightning bolt at birth, dooming me to unluckiness. Or maybe I ate a cursed apple, that a clever witch had switched just before recess in my younger years.

It was the fall of my junior year, I was in clay class. Our assignment was to make a box. Plain and simple. I designed my box to be a utopian city. All four sides of my box had a precise number of skyscrapers, which I embellished with numerous windows and doors. I toiled over rolling, cutting, and preparing the clay. It was extremely fragile, and every small crack sent me into a panic. During the last week of class, I was working on the lid of my box. The finishing piece to my city was a bridge that connected the two ends of the box together and attached to the lid. Carefully I smoothed out the edges of my bridge, and lowered the lid onto the top of the box. Just as I placed the lid, the bridge and most of the skyscrapers shattered. Leaving the beautiful utopian city to ruins, and making the hours that I had spent molding the fragile clay futile. The curse of my bad luck had struck again. The evil cloud of doom had followed me down to the basement of my school, at the very end of the hallway, to the exact location of my most precious artwork. I could feel my stomach turn as I assessed the damage of my city. I scrambled through my brain, thinking of how I could save it; what I could do to fill in the cracks. But when I looked at my box, I saw a new meaning to my artwork. While it may have not been the utopian city I was trying to build, it was the shattered ruins of a once perfect society; broken by a force much larger than itself.

I glazed and painted the city just as it had fallen, with the bridge knocked over and the tops of the buildings crumbled. My box was sent to the statewide art show, and while it did not win, I was one of the finalist.

From my fallen city I realized that I’m not unlucky after all; I simply take risks. I have big ideas that can never be easily executed. Im constantly challenging myself and pushing the limits of my ability. I welcome failure because in no way does it stop me from reaching my goals, it forces me to look at the problem from a different angle, and find a new perspective. In a sea of endless possibilities I search for the most difficult and creative approaches. Not only to test my capability but to prove my determination to go above and beyond the obstacles that hinder me. From my broken artwork I learned that I make my own luck, and no cloud of doom follows my tracks. But I’ll keep eating my lucky charms, just in case.