We are all either victims or victors of Probability. Belonging to the latter category means you end up with a large shiny Mercedes parked on the driveway of your million dollar house. Belonging to the former means you still have the Mercedes, but it probably has a broken transmission, a leaky radiator, and the brakes work whenever they feel like it. Oh! And not to forget, your two million dollar house sits in an earthquake zone!
Probability has this nasty habit of jumping up and biting you in the rear when you least expect it. Like the time you got caught in a thunderstorm and you commended yourself on being prescient enough to have picked up an umbrella while rushing out of the house. That elation does a quick left exit as you realize that of the six umbrellas in the closet you picked the one that had been chewed up by the dog!
What about the time you decided that the itch in your crotch was irritating enough for you to invest a few seconds from your life scratching it. Like your other investment in an Ice Cream chain in Alaska, this one also took a turn for the worst, when your female co-worker caught you in the act. Of the one thousand nine hundred and twenty two people who work for the company, of the four buildings the company has and a cumulative sixty floors of office space, probability picked HER to walk into YOUR office at the exact time of your indiscretion. There is a saying out there that goes something like this: “The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of the act”. Most of us are not stupid. We know when we are doing something wrong. It makes more sense to say: “The probability of indulging in a stupid act is directly proportional to the fear of being watched!”
Probability is like that big bully in your high school. It has a cruel sense of humor and has no qualms against humiliating you in public, repeatedly. Like the time you were marching at “Eyes right” in your school parade and the elastic on your shorts chose that exact moment to snap. One hand up in a salute and the other holding your shorts up is not exactly the way your PT teacher taught you to do “Eyes right”. Your entire life flashes in front of your eyes and you wonder if you could rewind back to that exact point in time when you decided that today was the day you would not wear a belt. It’s also at this very point in time, you imagine, that the big bully Probability calls all his friends into the room, chuckles and says, “Hey guys, watch this!”
There are people who will argue that events in our life are dictated by choices we make. To those people I say phooey! In this vast playground we call life, choices are just that, choices. You can go this way or that way and the ultimate consequence is unpredictable. All you can do is gear up; wear that helmet, put on those pads, don those gloves, grab that bat, look up as you walk out onto the field and say a quick prayer. You can also hope that the big bully is having a good day and has found someone else to bowl bouncers at.
As for me, having given up the game of one up-man-ship with Probability, I hurt retire; hang up my gloves and walk slowly back to the locker rooms. In this moment of surrender I ask you to please excuse me. I need to go fix the brakes on my Mercedes.
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