I have a theory that if a day is meant to be bad, it’ll turn out bad. Doesn’t matter what you do to try to make it good, if fate has decreed it’s going to be a crappy day you absolutely cannot stop it from turning out crappy.
As you might expect, I also think the converse is true. Sometimes, no matter how many mistakes or errors of judgment you make, things keep turning out all right.
This morning I thought I was having the second kind of day.
Anyone who knows me will agree that, firstly, I’m not a morning person, and secondly, I’m not very good at being on time. Consequently, the whole getting to work on time thing is a battle I fight every morning. Sometimes if I’m late the universe has conspired against me (for example, train delays) but more often than not it’s my own inability to focus on what I need to do to get out of the house on time and my propensity to get distracted.
So not a huge surprise that this morning I left the house running a few minutes late, certain I’d miss the train I needed to catch to be at work on time. The universe, however, had other plans. Fate intervened in the form of a bus that turned up exactly when I needed it to and I managed to make my train.
(Yes! Thank you, Universe!)
You can understand why I thought perhaps it was going to be the kind of day that conspires for you and ensures that, despite all you do to stuff things up, it turns out okay.
I even got a seat on the train.
(Double yes!)
Twenty minutes later as we pulled into Richmond Station, however, the driver announced that the train would not be running through the City Loop because of a signalling fault. Instead, it would be going direct to Flinders Street.
I, of course, needed to go through the Loop.
(Noooooooo. No, no, no, no, no, no… Universe! What are you doing?)
I got off my train to wait for one that would take me through the Loop. As I stood on the platform contemplating my bad luck, it occurred to me that there were people who had been on the same train as me for whom this unexpected change was a good thing. Maybe they had to get off at Flinders Street and they were running late, so not going through the Loop meant they were now going to be on time. Just as half the carriage groaned with the driver’s announcement, the other half did a mental fist pump and said, Yes! Thank you Universe! Just as I had, 20 minutes earlier.
Luck, I realised, is a totally relative thing. As it turns out, I’m not at the centre of the universe. It’s not all about me. Sometimes it’s the other people’s turn to have fate conspire for them.
Realising this made me feel a lot better about my morning. I realised I don’t mind being a bit late to work if it means a whole bunch of other people feel lucky and that their day has just been made. Thinking about it totally cheered me up and turned my morning around again.
Which is quite lucky, don’t you think?
(Yes!)
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