Enrique Iglesias and the Matter of Luck

A friend of mine, a young Spanish teacher named Jule is in love with Enrique Iglesias. She has turned her classroom into a shrine for this singer, much to her students’ amusement. She even named her son’s turtle after her idol.

Needless to say, she makes a great effort to be at all his concerts that are held within a 5 hour driving radius to where she lives. So it was last year she found out he was scheduled to be in Boston and immediately got tickets to attend. But she didn’t want to go alone, so she asked everyone she knew. Of course, few people in her life are as enamored of Enrique as she is and it was a busy time of year. Finally, her sister-n-law, Letty, consented. She likes his music well enough and thought it would be a nice night out for the two of them talking, going to dinner, then seeing the concert.

Jule made sure she wore the appropriate black outfit, because as she explained, the highlight of the concert is when Enrique selects a woman from the crowd, pulls her up on stage with him and sings to her. He always seems to select women who are dressed in shades of black, thus her informal research has indicated. Most of the women in the audience would love to be that woman. When he scans the crowd looking for “his” woman, you can hear shouts that say “Pick me! Pick me!” Jule admits she would love it if he picked her. So she does everything in her power to maximize the odds – she dresses like all the women he seems to pick, she spends large sums of money getting seats up front.

So it was during this particular concert, as the singer scanned the audience for his choice, he bent down, extended his hand a few inches from Jule’s face – and took the hand of her sister-in-law who was right next to her. For the next 20 minutes, Letty sat stunned on stage with the famous singer, his arm around her, his head close to hers as he sang love songs to her and pausing only to ask her questions about her and her life.

While Jule was happy for her sister-in-law, she realized that a once in a lifetime chance eluded her – all because of luck. Maybe Enrique liked the way Letty looked that night, or was dressed – or maybe she was simply more visible than she was. No one will ever know why Letty was selected and Jule was not. Or maybe there was no reason at all – maybe it was all just a matter of luck.

In many ways this is what happens to writers. They spend years writing a book they need to write and are convinced there are readers out there who will like the book well enough to propel it onto the world stage in front of a larger audience. But ultimately it’s a matter of luck whether a writer is “chosen” or not. But like my friend, you have to be at the show in order to be chosen. So if a writer never gets around to writing that masterpiece, there is no hope at all that her work will be “chosen”. But ultimately, it’s a matter of luck. Just like an Enrique concert…