Author Richard Dawkins wrote: “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones because most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.”
In the early 1960s two teenagers met on a “blind date” (a social engagement with a person one has not previously met that was arranged by another person). In 1964, the same two teenagers got married and had three children. I am one of their children. What if the two teenagers had never agreed to go on the “blind date” and gotten married?
In 1987 I was working in a store in Westminster Maryland. One day, while working, a young lady was introduced to me who was hired as my part time employee. In 1988 we were married. In 1989 we started trying to start a family. By the late 1990s we were still unable to conceive. Between 1998-2004 we adopted six children. What if I, and the young lady had never worked at that store in the late 1980s?
Contingency (a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty) happens when a small change happens and everything else turns out differently. Convergence happens when there appears to be a certain order and “everything” works.
Consequential events, sometimes, evolve into events that we could have never imaged happening in our lives and the lives of so many other people around the world over many centuries.
Everything does not happen for a reason…but sometimes you and I can discover reasons. Events alter the future without us knowing that our future was just changed forever. Our timelines have been changed on purpose and by chance…by “flukes.”
We control some things in our lives and we influence a lot of things. Everything you say and do alters your future and of those around you.
We live somewhere between order and chaos every-single-day. The difference can be what we do every day to attempt to design our lives in such a way that pulls us toward the goals that we desire instead of “hoping and praying” things will turn out well for us.
Again, everything does not happen “for a reason.” What we do, however, creates ripples. What we say and do creates causes in effects and ways that are amazing. Your “thread of life” impacts everyone and continue to impact people that you might never ever meet in person.
There are some people, in your life, right now are in your life because of events and decisions that you were not able to forecast. Every tiny decision that you decide to make today creates massive changes that could lead to events that you cannot image at this very minute. Everything you say and do…matters.
We can predict some of our future, to a certain level, by the actions we choose to take on a daily basis. A small change, a pivot, always leads to a profound “shift” in our timeline. Who we allow into our lives always impacts our timeline.
The origins of the events in your historical timeline that has resulted in you reading these words, right now, would be staggering to try to comprehend. “Random” events, decisions made and relationships that were formed by “happenstance” changed everything in your life and the lives of those in your life.
Every time you give up, hurt someone on purpose or persist in the midst of massive pain changes….everything….forever.
What if you chose to be intentional about what you say and do on an hourly basis? The next thing you say, the next step you take, no matter how small, might become the hinge upon which not only your future turns, but the futures of countless others you may never even know existed.
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