LUCK BY DESIGN

In this nonfiction book, a successful entrepreneur contends that people should embrace chance, which necessarily shapes their lives.

According to Tank, humans are hardwired to depreciate the role of randomness in their lives, and correspondingly exaggerate the extent to which they control their own fates. The illusion of this mastery of personal destiny is a consoling comfort, the reassurance that while unanticipated disasters befall others, one can adequately prepare. But chance in fact asserts itself constantly in people’s affairs, the author contends, and is permanently woven into the fabric of human existence. Unpredictable events can change people definitively—Tank calls these moments “catalysts”—and often such experiences are not the stuff of great drama, but rather are deceptively quotidian. For example, Stephen Hawking, the eminent physicist, did not see his struggle with ALS as the decisive factor that fashioned his character, but rather his engagement to his future wife, which filled him with a life-affirming purpose. The author furnishes numerous, richly detailed examples of catalysts—the book includes captivating profiles of diverse figures such as actor Charlize Theron and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, whose success seemed to depend on fortuity. Still, the work’s chief argument mainly offers a dose of common sense, that humans do not enjoy Godlike control over the future and so should embrace randomly delivered serendipity: “Catalysts are beyond our control. So we might as well enjoy the ride.” Tank regales readers with clearly written summaries of the science that seems to support his argument, but they won’t need an introduction to crisis theory to know that unforeseen events, even disastrous ones, can later support the establishment of fortitude and even a more profound happiness. Despite all the science skillfully corralled in its favor, the book’s argument remains familiar.

An intriguing but uneven treatise on serendipity.