Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for June 19, 2015

You asked, Pig, you received.

Pig, go buy a lottery ticket.

Luck plays a larger role than most people want to admit. Hard work absolutely is important, but look at folks who have succeeded without really having to work hard. They had something the masses wanted and it was luck that they not only didn’t have to work hard to produce that something but that it was them and not someone else who had it.

It is written: The sun shines and the rain falls on the the just and unjust alike. Pig is mostly right (altho he is a loser…), Goat not so much. If there is justice in this world, it is rough justice, and lies in the fact that there is none at all. Opportunity and tragedy both mostly knock at random, and opportunity rarely knocks loud.Have a nice day.

@ Alexandsoforth: “the rain falls on the the just and unjust alike”   However:

The rain it falleth every dayUpon the Just and Unjust fella,But mainly on the Just becauseThe Unjust has the Just’s umbrella!

Not true, of course. While few people succeed without hard work, untold millions work hard without success.

Yes, Pig. That’s why it’s a dream.

Pig did you feel lucky today?

It’s also important to be born into the right family.Inheriting the cumulative results of multiple previous generations’ hard work is a lot more effective than working yourself, but you can still claim to be a success based on your assets.

staying alive…

Being born into the right country is “luck”, being born into a good family is “luck”, but then it is up to you to do something with it.

Redefine “succeeding”

If at first you don’t succeedSuc,suc,suc until you do succeed.

Could we but see them, the streets and yards of our cities, the rolling plains of our farmlands, the rugged mountains of our skyline, and all places, all, all are littered with Dead Dreams. Dead Dreams would be our most abundant natural resource if we could figure out how to harness them.Deal with it, Pig.

Unless you’re born into it

Actress Kate Jackson was once asked if she believes in luck. “Of course I do!”, she replied. “How else do you explain the success of my enemies?”!

Luck plays a big part in everything that happens in life. Hard work may pay off in the short run, but laziness never killed anyone.If it wasn’t for BAD LUCK I’d have no luck at all

I’ve had a lot of bad luck in my life, but then again my cousin decided to have 5 kids with 5 different guys to get 5 different sources of tax free child support income, living on housing and without having to work at all lives better than myself who works full time…she sure got good fortune making decent money by picking the right kind of guys to breed with and being a slut.

Aye.

“Gloom, despair, and agony on meDeep, dark depression, excessive miseryIf it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at allGloom, despair, and agony on me”

my dreams are are all shattered, my luck has run outi used to walk miles but now i got gout

the money she printed i’ve been told is all funnyand maybe that’s why the law took my honey

my truck done quit runningthe cows have all diedthe crops all got burned upand the chickens all fried

so if you want dreamsthat will never come truejust read pearls before swineand dreams won’t happen to you

And sadly, it happens to whole countries. Tsunamis, earthquakes, drought, famine, floods… And usually to the poorest of the poor.

Hard work at the wrong thing seldom produces success. And success is in the eye of the beholder – “Richard Corey went home one night and put a bullet through his head”

unhappy,you have no complaints.you are what you are & you ain’t what you ain’tso listen up buster & listen up goodstop wishing for bad luck &knocking on woodsigned, dear abby—-

john prine

Oh that is so true

If Paris Goat’s words were true, we wouldn’t have so many useless “celebrities” and TMZ wouldn’t exist.

Nope. It’s random luck about half the time. Maybe more. Maybe 90 percent.

It was already severely impaired and unlikely to survive.Keeping it alive any longer would just be cruel.

Success is rearing children, keeping them fed, having a roof over their head. Much of the world does not know success, usually due to a constrictive government.

Granted that Pig is lazy, but I really can’t relate to this one. “I may or may succeed, and there’s nothing I can do about it” isn’t a dream, it’s complacency (and happy complacency in Pig’s case). The idea that hard work brings rewards is the (American) dream, and it’s that dream that reality (and luck) kills.

Author “BlueDude” has made an iToons based off of this strip: https://www.mezzacotta.net/itoons/?comic=21

Unfortunately, hard work doesn’t always pay off. Luck plays a much larger role in success than we like to admit.

Just redefine ‘success’! If you’re still alive and have all your fingers, you are a success!