Ever had one of those days where everything just clicks? You catch every green light, your coffee is the perfect temperature, and you bump into an old friend who happens to have a job opening you’ve been dreaming about. Most people call that luck. They say it happened by chance. But if you spend enough time around high-achievers, scientists, or even master chess players, you start to realize they don't really believe in luck—at least not the way we do. They’re obsessed with the opposite of by chance.
It’s called intentionality.
Or design. Or, if you want to get technical, determinism.
Basically, it's the idea that your life isn't just a series of random dice rolls. When you stop leaving things to "the universe" and start engineering your outcomes, the world looks completely different. Honestly, it's kind of exhausting to think that we're just leaves blowing in the wind. Who wants that? Most of us want to know that if we put in X, we're going to get Y. That’s the dream, right?
The Mechanics of Intentionality
What is the actual opposite of by chance? In a linguistic sense, you’re looking at words like deliberately, purposely, or on purpose. But in a practical, real-world sense, it’s about causality.
Think about Bill Belichick. Love him or hate him, the guy didn't win six Super Bowls as a head coach because the ball just happened to bounce his way. He’s famous for "doing your job." That’s a philosophy rooted entirely in the opposite of by chance. It’s about reducing the variables. If every player is exactly where they are supposed to be, at the exact millisecond they are supposed to be there, the "chance" of a failure drops significantly.
We see this in science too.
In a lab setting, a "chance" discovery—like Alexander Fleming finding penicillin—is actually super rare. Most scientific breakthroughs are the result of methodical replication. You do the same thing over and over, changing one tiny variable at a time, until you get a predictable result. That predictability is the antithesis of randomness.
Why We Are Obsessed With Luck
Humans are wired to see patterns, even where they don't exist. This is a survival mechanism. Our ancestors needed to know that a rustle in the grass meant a predator was coming, not just a random breeze. But this also leads us to "gambler's fallacy." We think that because we've lost ten times in a row, we're "due" for a win.
That’s a lie.
The deck doesn’t have a memory. Each shuffle is a reset.
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When you live your life by chance, you’re basically sitting at a slot machine. You’re waiting for the three cherries to line up. But when you move toward the opposite of by chance, you’re the one building the machine. You’re the engineer. You understand the internal gears.
The Deliberate Practice Factor
K. Anders Ericsson, the psychologist who basically inspired the whole "10,000 hours" rule (which Malcolm Gladwell later popularized), talked about deliberate practice. This isn't just hitting a tennis ball against a wall for an hour. That's just passing time.
Deliberate practice is the opposite of by chance because it is focused on specific improvement. You aren't just hitting the ball; you are hitting it with a specific grip to achieve a specific spin to land it in a specific three-inch square on the court.
It’s painful. It’s boring.
But it’s how you get good.
The Math of the Matter: Probability vs. Certainty
Let's talk about $P(A)$. In probability theory, the chance of an event happening is rarely zero and rarely one. It’s usually somewhere in the messy middle.
If you want the opposite of by chance, you are trying to drive that probability as close to $1$ (certainty) as humanly possible.
- By Chance: Going to a networking event and hoping someone offers you a job.
- Opposite of By Chance: Researching the attendees, identifying three key decision-makers, preparing specific questions about their recent quarterly reports, and following up with a handwritten note.
The second option doesn’t guarantee a job, but it tilts the scales so far in your favor that "luck" barely has to do any work.
The Downside of Control
Is it possible to go too far? Probably.
If you try to make every single second of your life the opposite of by chance, you become a robot. You lose the "serendipity" that makes life fun. There’s a reason people love jazz—it’s the interplay between the structured melody and the random improvisation.
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In his book The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about "antifragility." He argues that we shouldn't try to eliminate randomness because the world is inherently chaotic. Instead, we should build systems that benefit from chaos.
So, maybe the goal isn't to live 100% in the opposite of by chance camp. Maybe it’s about having a solid foundation of intention, so when the random "chance" stuff happens, you’re in a position to capitalize on it.
If you're prepared, a random encounter is an opportunity. If you're unprepared, it's just a guy you talked to at a bus stop.
Real World Examples of Non-Random Success
Look at Warren Buffett. People think he’s a wizard. He’s not. He just has a very strict set of rules. He doesn't buy stocks "by chance." He waits for a very specific set of circumstances—what he calls his "circle of competence"—and then he strikes.
His wealth is the opposite of by chance. It is the result of decades of saying "no" to things that felt like a gamble.
Or look at elite chefs. In a high-end kitchen, nothing is left to chance. The "mise en place"—everything in its place—is a religious ritual. The salt is measured. The temperature is controlled to the degree. The timing is down to the second.
When you eat a three-star Michelin meal, you aren't tasting "luck." You are tasting calculated precision.
Misconceptions About Effort
A big mistake people make is thinking that "hard work" is the same thing as the opposite of by chance.
It’s not.
You can work 80 hours a week digging holes and filling them back up. That’s hard work, but it’s aimless. The opposite of by chance requires strategy. It requires you to look at the map before you start running.
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Honestly, some of the most "unlucky" people I know are also some of the hardest workers. They just haven't learned how to stop reacting to the world and start acting upon it. They are always in "defense" mode.
Actionable Steps to Live the Opposite of By Chance
If you want to stop living a life dictated by the roll of the dice, you have to change your operating system. It’s not an overnight fix. It’s a habit.
Audit Your "Chance" Moments
Look at the last three things that went wrong in your life. Be honest: were they truly random? Or were they the result of a lack of preparation? Most "bad luck" is just a delayed reaction to a poor decision. If your car broke down, was it a "random" failure, or had you been ignoring that squeaking sound for three months?
Define Your Outcomes Before You Start
Never go into a meeting, a workout, or even a difficult conversation without knowing exactly what you want the result to be. If you don't have a target, you're just shooting arrows into the dark. That’s living by chance.
Build Redundancies
The opposite of by chance is "reliability." In engineering, this means having backups. If you have an important presentation, have it on a thumb drive, in the cloud, and printed out. If the "chance" of the internet going out is 1%, having a backup makes the chance of failure almost 0%.
Master the Small Stuff
Precision in small things leads to precision in big things. Make your bed. Show up five minutes early. Double-check your emails for typos. These seem like "busy work," but they train your brain to reject randomness.
Study the Systems
Stop looking at the stars and start looking at the gears. Whether it's your career, your health, or your relationships, there are systems at play. Learn the rules of the game so you can stop being a pawn.
Life is always going to throw some curveballs. You can’t control the weather, and you can’t control other people. But the opposite of by chance isn't about being a god who controls everything. It’s about being an architect who builds something sturdy enough to withstand the storm.
Start building. Stop wishing.
The next time something goes right, make sure it’s because you made it go right.
Final Practical Insight
To truly embody the opposite of by chance, start by identifying one area of your life where you feel "unlucky." Spend the next week documenting every variable in that area. If it's your finances, track every cent. If it's your fitness, track every calorie and every rep. By turning the "unknown" into data, you strip away the power of chance and replace it with the power of choice. Precision is the only real cure for a streak of bad luck. Luck is for those who haven't done the math. Strategy is for those who have.