Geez. Sometimes everything seems to go wrong in a cascade, one thing after another, at just the moment you need life to run smoothly.
Yesterday, i went to a non-profit job fair at UCLA. I woke up with exactly enough time to update my resume, print several copies, and get going. Instead, i dropped makeup on my dress, messed up the entire design of my resume, the printer quit working, and i twisted my ankle in the parking garage. Im not usually so ungraceful--it seemed like the world was working against me.
I sometimes get frustrated and think--what are the odds that all these pesky things would come together at a crucial moment. But, then i think--there are almost an infinite number of mornings, lunches, afternoons at school, daytime meetings, dinner parties, dance nights, lazy evenings, and midnight movies over the course of the year that are not plagued with such coincidence. For every moment that we seem to have such terrible luck, there are millions of other moments over the course of the week that those moments are not happening.
It's sure a comforting thought, when your about to present yourself in front of 50 possible future employers, that the world is not working against you--that instead you have just witnessed a really rare event!
(print by artist Jay Howell)
4.07.2009
THE PROBABILITY OF HAVING A BAD MORNING
Geez. Sometimes everything seems to go wrong in a cascade, one thing after another, at just the moment you need life to run smoothly.
Yesterday, i went to a non-profit job fair at UCLA. I woke up with exactly enough time to update my resume, print several copies, and get going. Instead, i dropped makeup on my dress, messed up the entire design of my resume, the printer quit working, and i twisted my ankle in the parking garage. Im not usually so ungraceful--it seemed like the world was working against me.
I sometimes get frustrated and think--what are the odds that all these pesky things would come together at a crucial moment. But, then i think--there are almost an infinite number of mornings, lunches, afternoons at school, daytime meetings, dinner parties, dance nights, lazy evenings, and midnight movies over the course of the year that are not plagued with such coincidence. For every moment that we seem to have such terrible luck, there are millions of other moments over the course of the week that those moments are not happening.
It's sure a comforting thought, when your about to present yourself in front of 50 possible future employers, that the world is not working against you--that instead you have just witnessed a really rare event!
(print by artist Jay Howell)
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Given the circumstances, the really rare event might not be as rare as one might think. The idea that more things go wrong "at just the moment you need life to run smoothly" may very well be because at such times, a person has increased anxiety or stress, which in turn, increases the tendency to making mistakes.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, when you're about to present yourself in front of 50 possible future employers, it would be more likely that you're not paying as acute attention as you normally would, thereby making it more likely for makeup to drop on your dress or your ankle to get twisted.
So, yes, not only is the world not working against you, but you may have actually witnessed a somewhat probable event.
That said, something wholly independent, like the printer quitting at such a moment, can definitley be classified amongst the really rare events.
always the optimist!
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