Which One Truly Works: Luck or Effort?

Once Luck and Effort came to King Vikramaditya’s court and asked him –
'Who is greater among us? You please tell us?'

They were having a dispute and Vikramaditya had to settle this.
The King thought for a moment. Difficult question.
He said, 'I won’t be able to tell you offhand. Come back after six months. Then, I would tell you.'

Vikramaditya kept on thinking for days. He couldn’t arrive at a conclusion.
He said, 'Let me get out of the palace, mingle with the citizens. Then I might get an answer for this.'

He went to the seashore. There, a merchant’s ship was about to leave with goods loaded.
The King was in disguise as an ordinary man.
Vikramaditya approached the merchant.
'Can you give me some work?'
'What can you do?'
'I can do anything, everything.'
'OK. Then get into the ship.'

The ship started sailing.
After a few days, when they were in the middle of the sea, suddenly they were struck by a fierce storm.
It was almost certain that the ship would sink.

They saw an island a little far away.
With a lot of effort, everyone together managed to get the ship to the island.
Finally, the ship was anchored to the island.
The storm subsided after a couple of days.

When they got ready to sail again, they couldn’t get the anchor released.
Many of them tried. The anchor was stuck hard, to the ground of the island.
The merchant called Vikramaditya,
'At the time of joining you said you can do anything, everything. Now you go and pull out the anchor.'

Vikramaditya got to the island and lifted the anchor out. Alone.
Suddenly, the ship started drifting away in strong wind that came,
and Vikramaditya was left alone on the island.

He started roaming about.
Suddenly, he found written on a stone sign board:
'Someday King Vikramaditya will come and marry the princess of this island.'

Vikramaditya started looking for the palace, reached there and announced that he was King Vikramaditya.
They took him through a series of tests to make sure that he was indeed King Vikramaditya,
at the end of which the grand royal wedding took place.

The King spent some time there enjoying.
Then he said that he had to go back and take care of his responsibilities.
As soon as he goes back and settles down, he would send for the princess.

A ship was arranged for him to go back.
Many soldiers and servants accompanied him.
They reached the mainland and started travelling towards the capital.
It was a few days away from where they landed.
At sunset, they would all camp somewhere and again set out in the morning.

On one such night, where they camped, they saw the hut of a sanyasi.
Vikramaditya went and offered respects to him.
The sanyasi gave the King a garland of gems and a magical wand and said,
'Whoever wears this garland, he would meet with success everywhere.
And this magic wand — before going to sleep, you ask for anything. When you wake up, it will be there right in front of you.'

The King accepted them and left the place in the morning.

After a couple of more days, they reached a garden.
It was within Vikramaditya’s kingdom and they had almost reached close to the capital.
The King sent away the soldiers and servants who had accompanied him from the island.

As he was resting in the garden, two people approached him.
They recognized the King and said,
'We have been taking care of this garden for the last number of years.
Nobody paid us anything. But we were hopeful that someday our King would come and reward us for our efforts.'

Vikramaditya gave the garland to one man and the magic wand to the other.
He reached back the capital and assumed his royal responsibilities.

Six months got over.
Effort and Luck came back for his decision.
Vikramaditya –
'You both are equal, and you both complement each other.
In the case of giving result, you both complement each other.
Gain through luck cannot happen if effort is not there.
Gain through effort cannot happen if luck is not there.'

Let’s look through the series of events:

For the King, there was a task ahead — a puzzle to be solved,
a challenge which, if not met, would have affected his reputation if he didn’t solve it.
He didn’t sit for six months and think.
He went out looking for an answer — became a worker in a ship — effort.

The storm, having been left alone in the island — nature, it was not anticipated.
But when left alone in the island, he didn’t sit and curse his fate.
He started exploring — effort.

Then the stone sign, a princess waiting for him — luck.
But if he had not gone inside and explored, he would never have found that stone sign.
Luck was waiting for him, but he reached it through effort.

He got a beautiful princess as his wife — luck.

The two people taking care of the garden.
Could they have got the opportunity to meet the King there had they not been working hard to maintain the garden? — effort again.
The King was impressed by their hard work, that’s why he gave them the magical gifts that he got from the sanyasi.
But getting them — a garland that can ensure success and a magic wand that granted all wishes — luck.
Everyone who puts in effort doesn’t get rewarded like this.
That is luck.

Effort — luck,
luck — effort.
They complement each other.

This is what the King realized at the end of all this — from his own experience, his own observation.

But in today’s world — in general — effort is remunerated.
Nobody puts in effort if it is not remunerated reasonably.
There is reasonable remuneration for every effort.
That is the only thing that you can rely on.

So, align yourself with effort, which is more or less under your control.
Don’t wait for luck.
Work hard. Be reasonably remunerated for your work.
Only take this into account when you plan for your life.

Planning of your life should not be based upon luck.
If luck comes to you in the course of your hard work, accept it with grace.
Don’t give more importance to luck than this in your life.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi