Murphy’s Law is more than just some dumb thing some people say when shit doesn’t go their way (that needs to be eliminated from the vernacular, preferably brutally with a bullet). It also has a deeper, more significant impact on our lives (and in particular our happiness, or contentment ((which I think is far more important))¹
Waiting in line the other day, about 3-deep, there was a woman in front of me who was clearly undecided about which lane is going to be the quickest. Anyway, another girl came and stepped into the lane to her right and asked the DESPERATELY torn woman, ‘Do you mind… (if I go in front)?’
To which she replied:
‘Go ahead. Either way, I’ll be wrong.’
Murphy’s Law and its effect on contentment
And that’s the self-defeating attitude that leads to people feeling like life has done them wrong at every turn. That every one else has had all the benefits, all the riches and all the successes but somehow, they were the only one who has just had everything go wrong.
It’d have been just as easy to say, ‘Go ahead. Either way, I’ll be right’.
There’s a couple things there. Some people feel that failures are what unite us. However, perpetuating the idea that we lose at every turn, makes it true.
Life is not fair. Because nature is not fair. Everything that happens happens because that’s the way it’s meant to. But thinking that whatever we do is for the best and whatever happens to us is for the betterment of us, to strengthen us, to make us tougher for harder things in the future is a far more productive and better path to contentment than ‘Either way, I’ll be wrong.’
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¹ Whow. See what I just did there? Double brackets. If people start using that in writing in the future you know who to credit for inventing it.