A Pilot's Two Buckets

In flying it is commonly stated that when a student becomes a pilot God issues him two buckets.  The first is his luck bucket and it is full.  The second is his experience bucket and it has only what he has learned from his instructor.  At this point the experience bucket is pretty empty.  I tell my students that they need to fill up their experience bucket before the luck bucket runs out.

I should point out that no one but God know just how big the luck bucket is.  While it is certainly full when He gives it to you, some guys obviously have enormous luck buckets; because, they have been drawing heavily from it for years.  Others, and I believe I fall into this catagory, have relatively small luck buckets.  Since you don't know how large your luck bucket is, prudence dictates you draw on it as little as possible and focus insteand on getting that experience bucket as full as you can as soon you can.  Save your luck bucket for the times when circumstances beyond your control (or when you have been particularly pig-headed and dropped your experience bucket) force you to dip into the luck bucket.

The neat thing about the experience bucket, unlike the luck bucket, is that it will grow as your experience grows.  You can keep putting more experience in it and, unlike your luck bucket, when you draw on your experience bucket whatever you have put in there will be there when you need it.