Am I fortunate, fortunate, or fortunate?

My Spare Change

From Dictionary.com:
Fortunate

adjective

1. having good fortune; receiving good from uncertain or unexpected sources; lucky:
   a fortunate young actor who got the lead in the play.
2. bringing or indicating good fortune: resulting favorably; auspicious:
   She made a fortunate decision to go on to medical school.
3. well-to-do; comfortable; prosperous:
   a summer camp for less fortunate fourth graders.

I use this word often; ironically most often my use case is the 3rd definition, not the first.


A friend in a "debate" on social media made me aware of the primary definition of fortunate.


So... let's explore this a bit:


Am I lucky or have I received good from unexpected sources?


Yes. Not the "I just won the lottery" kind of lucky. I am lucky I was born in a first world country to good parents. To the best of my knowledge I have never had to overcome my gender, race, or religion. That's pretty fortunate.

Do I indicate good fortune?

Hmmm... probably not. I am ok with that.

Am I well-to-do, or comfortable, or prosperous?

Yes. I am certainly comfortable. I have a nice home, a good job with good benefits, great friends, a caring mother, and a loving and fantastic wife. I would say that makes me prosperous.

So, am I fortunate? I have 2 out of 3; that tells me I am.

Re: Roadrunner

Over the last several years I have neglected flickr (which somewhat saddens me, as it was the first social network I used and I learned so much about photography thanks to flickr). Even more neglected was my flickr mail. Today for whatever reason, a notification about a flickr message did not get dumped into it's usual folder and made it's way to my inbox.

It was a message from an individual regarding the photo shown below.

The individual is a "Norwegian Non-fiction author, I write and illustrate books about animals for kids." 

They had made a book about bird facts and folktales from around the world and used my photograph as reference for one of the illustrations (below):

A nice little gem for my day.

I started to look through the remaining unread messages from flickr and realized I have several more messages from other creators asking if they may use photos on different artistic mediums of their own creation. I have sent a few replies, I don't expect responses given some of the messages are older than 6 months... but maybe... it was rewarding to discover several of my photos had engendered inspiration in others.