Fortune Holds the Rudder—Take the Helm
Last week, a veteran told me something I have heard in various forms over the years: “I did everything I was supposed to do. And it still went sideways.” He was not complaining. He was genuinely bewildered. The contract he had been operating under his entire adult life: Work hard, train hard, follow the rules, and the outcomes will track your effort. That contract had been broken, but not by him. I have written previously about the convergence between Ecclesiastes and Plato. Here I want to dig deeper into the two passages that speak most directly to the man sitting across from me. The Verse Ecclesiastes 9:11: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Five forms of human excellence. Not one of them rules over fortune. The Hebrew is worth pausing on. The word for “time” is et: not clock time …








