Archive for January 7, 2009

Every so often I find myself thinking about how I got to where I am and how I met the people I know. And it's interesting to look back and realize how much of my life has been defined eventually by the small decisions and events that didn't seem to be very important at the time but ended up tremendously important later down the line.

Perhaps I'm just thinking of this now because I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night, but I have thought of this before as well.

For example, my friends. One of the things in my life that I value the most that could have turned out drastically different depending on many factors, big and small.

I could have gone to a different college. My adviser could have placed me in a different set of classes when I first registered. I could have sat in a different part of the room, not struck up a conversation, I could have been late one day and on and on. There's a thousand things big and small that could have been just slightly different and I wouldn't know the people I know today, and my life would have been almost totally different.

Every moment there's millions and millions of possible choices and we get to pick just one. Sometimes the decisions don't have any real meaning to them…other times they mean everything and most of the time it's impossible to know which ones are which. It just really makes me glad that I stumbled onto this particular set of decisions that got me here and with these people, as I couldn't imagine things any other way.

Also interesting is how the small decisions of other people can change the course of a total stranger's life. Events are all interconnected and fluid. For instance…somebody could totally miss a job interview because a tractor trailer overturned on the highway caused a traffic jam. The accident was caused by the driver moving at unsafe speeds because he was running late. And he was running late because the waitress at the dinner he had breakfast at was late with his coffee. The waitress was late with the coffee because somebody had decided that they would be nice and get a whole bunch to go to take into their co-workers, so they ran out.

So that one decision to be nice and get your coworkers some coffee caused another person to not get a job.

Even the most insignificant of events can cascade into having huge consequences. There's not really much we can do about it since, I mean…who knew that getting coffee would affect so much. But I just find it interesting that we can agonize over the huge stuff but sometimes even something as small as waking up a little earlier one morning could have just as big of an impact. Just funny how things work out sometimes.

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