The dumbest thing I ever did

Thursday, 12 November 2020

Our economic circumstances really do help to determine how lucky we are in the game of life.

I once got robbed at gunpoint, while stoned, in a shared taxi in Beirut. In what was easily the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, I bargained with the guy, while his gun alternated between my head and my ’nads. I carried a decoy wallet and pretended that the US$10 I set aside for the taxi fare was all I had. My Airpoints card was my “credit card”. I pretended not to understand his request for more money, which was hidden on my person. We jumped out of the taxi intact and simply walked back to the flat we were staying at.

I’ve often thought about that guy. How his life must have got to such a point of desperation that he’d pull a gun on a group of strangers. How disappointed he’d have been in terms of his loot, relative to the risk he took.

Brannavan Gnanalingam thanks his lucky stars for surviving a life-threatening situation.

* Hey white people, look around

* My parents wouldn't want me to write this

My Arabic-speaking friend in the car deduced that he was Palestinian, because he didn’t speak English or French like other Lebanese. He’d have had no chance for educational or employment opportunities. He’d have been stuck in a camp as a non-citizen. All down to a quirk of birth, which globally has meant he’s barely treated as human, let alone one with basic rights.

The question I’ve often thought about in the aftermath is: was I lucky? I only lost $10 in the scheme of things, money I would have spent on the ride anyway. I could have been shot, I guess. But I never had those thoughts. I simply assumed, arrogantly, that I’d be fine. I had a supreme confidence in my ability to appraise the situation and get myself out of the taxi – though I had absolutely no basis in fact or precedent to assume that I could.

Certain people like to think that luck has nothing to do with their success. Some people even have the chutzpah to think they achieved it all by themselves. But it’s clear that luck plays an enormous role in determining how someone does in life. Or rather you can flip it on its head and ask: who has the ability to make a mistake?

Luck gets in-built into our economic structures. And the thing is, bad luck or a mistake can have devastating consequences. If you’re bottom of the economic pile, then it’s a daily walk on eggshells, hoping none of them break. We like to hold up success stories, people who’ve worked their way up from the bottom, the state-house kids made good. But they’re only a story because they’re not the norm. You can’t create an economic system that relies on the poorest having to rely on good luck, all day, every day. I mean, you can, but it sucks.

If you’re on one side of the Work and Income counter, you could have bad luck because your bus doesn’t show up, so you miss your benefit payment, miss your rent, and then you’re out. On the other side of that counter, if you’re late – well, the other person just has to wait longer.

If you get a cold or the flu or Covid-19 as a supermarket worker or a fruit picker, it’s quite a different situation to someone who has a cushy job that allows for remote working and generous sick leave. Lose a low paid job because you’ve been dodgily restructured, you’ll probably not be able to afford a lawyer to fight for your rights. Successfully make a few staff members redundant? You can get an extra digit on your bonus. Does a company CEO really work that much harder than a cleaner? Really? Which one of them gets to make a mistake?

It was part of the reason I was firmly in the legalisation camp in the recent marijuana referendum. A drug, if you're lucky, means ultimately nothing in terms of police attention or job prospects. Or a drug, if you're unlucky, means far more attention from the justice system. And it was clear, to me, that I would fall firmly in the former camp when it comes to luck in that regard (armed robbers in taxis aside).

It’s a weird thing to hope that my robber is OK. Call it liberal guilt, if you must, but it’s easy to say how my mistakes that day – and they were clearly mistakes – resulted in nothing happening to me. My robber on the other hand would ultimately have no such luck. Who knows if he’s still robbing taxis? I doubt it. A few dollars a pop isn’t going to provide for a long-term escape. I genuinely felt for him as the blast recently ripped out all of the windows in Beirut.

If anyone says “you make your own luck”, the only actual response is, “That’s easy for you to say.”

It’s almost as if luck is simply a by-product of your position in society, even if the other person has a gun.

Brannavan Gnanalingam is a Wellington lawyer and novelist.