I've been thinking about this post for a week. I think you're right most of the time. A lot of good (or bad) "luck" is really just good (or bad) planning. On the other hand, there are some things that are truly just lucky or unlucky. They can be mitigated or exacerbated due to planning, but things just sometimes happen.

One of the biggest things we have absolutely no control over, but which establishes so much of our lives, is when, where, and to whom we're born. I can pretty much guarantee that anyone reading this blog was exceptionally lucky in the "birth" lottery -- we're all well enough off to have regular access to a computer, which means we're probably also all well enough off to live in a free country, have enough food, read and write arguably one of the most important languages on the planet (English)... none of these things are a given. In most times and places throughout history, this situation is not the norm. So we are all exceptionally lucky.

But when most people talk about "luck," they're talking about stuff that happens to them. This, too, has some element of chance in it. Bad "luck" is when someone in your apartment complex leaves the stove on by accident and there's a fire that destroys your apartment. Good planning can mitigate this (you have copies of your important documents in safe places, you have renter's insurance, you have family nearby to stay with), but it's still fundamentally bad luck that no amount of planning on your part could have changed.

There are also "good" luck things that you have no control over. You might be in line for the movies and find out you're the 100,000th customer and they're giving you a year's pass. Yay! That's just an example of great luck.

On the whole, I agree with you. I just think the issue's a little more complex than you make it out to be.

Cheers!