How to Read “The bad luck of the one who was hit”
Atatta mono no fu no warusa
Meaning of “The bad luck of the one who was hit”
This proverb describes the misfortune of someone who gets randomly selected from a large group. It’s used when someone must be chosen by lottery or drawing, especially for something nobody wants to do.
The saying expresses sympathy for the person who drew the short straw.
People especially use this when an unwanted role or burden gets decided by lottery. Everyone had the same chance of being picked, but you ended up being the one.
It captures the unfairness of that moment and the feeling of having to accept an unavoidable fate.
Even today, lotteries decide many things like PTA officer positions or group duties. When someone gets picked, others say this phrase to acknowledge their bad luck.
Sometimes the person who was chosen says it about themselves with self-deprecating humor.
Someone had to take on the responsibility, but everyone hoped to avoid it. This proverb perfectly captures that complicated situation and the misfortune involved.
Origin and Etymology
No clear written records explain the exact origin of this proverb. However, we can learn interesting things by looking at the words themselves.
The word “fu” is especially noteworthy. It’s an old Japanese word meaning “luck” or “fortune.”
Today you can still see it in compound words like “fuun” (misfortune) and “koufukou” (happiness and unhappiness). People have used this word since the Heian period to describe circumstances beyond human control.
The phrase “the one who was hit” refers to being randomly selected through lottery or drawing. During the Edo period, villages widely used lotteries to decide who would take turns doing various duties.
Lotteries were especially common for unpopular jobs or burdensome roles. They provided a fair way to make these difficult decisions.
This proverb likely emerged to express how people felt when they “got hit” in such situations. Why me out of all these people?
The saying captures that sense of unfairness and resignation. It shows humans at the mercy of fate’s tricks, expressed in just a few simple words.
Common people passed this expression down through generations because it spoke to a universal experience.
Interesting Facts
The word “fu” rarely appears alone in modern Japanese, but it lives on inside many other words. Some scholars say the “fu” in “fuun” (misfortune) originally meant “luck” itself, not the negative prefix “fu.”
The word “koufukou” combines happiness and luck as two separate elements.
In Edo period villages, lotteries were extremely important for making decisions. Roles like tax collector or fire watch carried heavy responsibility.
Everyone wanted to avoid these duties, but someone had to do them.
People developed the wisdom of drawing lots before gods and Buddha. This removed human bias and left the decision to fate.
It was a way to ensure fairness when fairness seemed impossible.
Usage Examples
- Out of more than a hundred people, I got picked. This is truly the bad luck of the one who was hit.
- I drew the assignment everyone wanted to avoid. I’m really feeling the bad luck of the one who was hit.
Universal Wisdom
This proverb contains deep insight about the relationship between fairness and fate in human society.
Every society has roles and burdens that everyone wants to avoid. But someone must take them on, or society cannot function.
Humanity invented the lottery as a solution to this problem. By removing human judgment and leaving things to chance, we try to achieve fairness that everyone can accept.
However, using a fair method doesn’t erase the misfortune of the person who gets chosen. In fact, because anyone could have been picked, the unfairness feels even sharper when it’s you.
To the question “Why me?” the only answer is “Because that’s fate.” That lack of a real answer might be the essence of life itself.
This proverb has survived because everyone understands a basic truth. Before fate, all humans are equal, and all humans are powerless.
We complain about unfair fate, yet we accept it and keep living. This short phrase beautifully expresses both the strength and weakness of the human spirit.
When AI Hears This
When someone wins 100 million yen in the lottery and then has an accident, everyone remembers it as “using up all their luck.” But on the same day, 9,999,999 people bought losing tickets.
Nobody counts how many of them had accidents. This is what statisticians call “disappearing denominator.”
From a probability perspective, lottery winners and non-winners should face misfortune at roughly the same rate. If traffic accidents occur at 0.5 percent, then among 100 winners and 10 million losers, the same proportion will have accidents.
Statistically, post-winning misfortune is just coincidence. But the human brain intensely remembers “winner’s misfortune” while “non-winner’s misfortune” fades into the background.
What’s fascinating is how this proverb experientially warns against drawing causal conclusions from only the visible sample of “the one who was hit.” Even in modern medical research, the error of tracking only successful patients and concluding “this medicine works” never stops.
Without data from patients who dropped out, the ones who “weren’t hit,” you cannot see the truth. This proverb brilliantly exposes the human cognitive bias of judging the whole from one conspicuous example.
Lessons for Today
This proverb teaches modern people how to accept misfortune with the right mindset.
In life, unavoidable roles and responsibilities sometimes fall on us suddenly. They aren’t necessarily the result of our choices.
Sometimes it’s just bad luck. When that happens, remember this proverb.
By putting it into words as “the bad luck of the one who was hit,” you can view the unfair situation a bit more objectively.
What matters is not just lamenting your misfortune, but deciding how to act after accepting it. Someone had to take this on.
It just happened to be you. Thinking this way helps you stop blaming yourself unnecessarily.
This proverb also teaches a lesson to those who weren’t chosen. You weren’t selected not because you’re superior, but simply because you were lucky.
Don’t forget gratitude and compassion for the person who was chosen.
That’s the first step toward building a society where people support each other. Before fate, we are all equal.
Comments