They say that some people are born lucky, and others unlucky. There may be some truth in this, but I can’t help wondering how big a part is played in this game of luck by the manner in which a person handles the cards that life has dealt. If, as Hamlet said, “There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so”, then one’s attitude to life is what makes the difference.

I know two women, both widowed, who illustrate the difference between the cheerful and the gloomy. One, in her early fifties, lost her husband suddenly to a heart attack. The other, in her seventies, lost hers after a long illness. For both, life has struck a hard blow and one’s sympathies are with them. However, while one would imagine that the younger one, with time on her side to build a new life, would have come to terms with her loss, she is sunk in a depression that refuses to lift. On the other hand, the older one, ironically, at an age when she herself needs bolstering, continues to take a positive outlook and, at least in company, is cheerful and philosophical.

In many respects their circumstances are very similar. Both of them have been left comfortably off, both have had happy marriages, both have children who are well settled, and though for differing reasons, both have moved into smaller flats. This last point illustrates their differing perspectives. While the younger one moans and groans about how cramped her flat is, how claustrophobic, and how unfriendly the neighbours are, the older one enthuses about how much easier it is to look after a smaller place, how convenient it is, and how kind the neighbours have been.

It is not widowhood that has made them this way. For all the years I have known her, the younger one has moaned and groaned, and spoken despairingly about her karma. Though the death of her husband has given her a genuine reason for misery, she has always felt, and with no justification, that life has been unkind to her. The older lady, on the other hand, has always seen the bright side of things, and been buoyant about life.

The trouble is that attitudes to life are infectious, and despondency is as catching as cheerfulness. Every time I visit my younger friend, I leave feeling depressed and unhappy. While when I see my older friend, I feel elated and buoyant. I am not surprised that the former has found no friends in the neighbourhood, while the latter has so many.

One’s luck, I am coming to believe, lies in being endowed with a happy, optimistic disposition ? a disposition that looks for a break in the clouds to reveal the blue skies beyond. It is such a disposition that makes it possible to deal with and overcome the slings and arrows aimed at one.