I'll Take Luck Over Brains Anytime

Of late I have been thinking about how much our business culture stresses that smartness and hard work get us what we deserve. In short, we make our own luck. Well, in at least one Twilight Zone episode, Of Late I Think of Cliffordville (video, 10 min), that just isn't the case.

A bright business tycoon's luck is changed when he strikes a deal with the devil to go back to the beginning of his business career to become even more successful. Despite knowing the future, the most brilliant of businessmen is outsmarted by a contract written by someone with even more smarts than he. Franchisees, does that remind you of anything?

The devestating result of this reversal of fortune on the cosmic monopoly board was that back in the future the tycoon becomes the janitor and the janitor at the beginning of the story becomes the tycoon through the same twist of fate. Despite the change in roles, the successful janitor of old now reads from the very same script that the rich tycoon once uttered in his hubris.

Corny? Yes. But the 1963 Twilight Zone episode is packed with meaning. Happy Thanksgiving.