Murphy's Law

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong

Posted

Many are familiar with the adage, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” otherwise known as Murphy’s Law.  This statement has been used throughout history, and while heavily debated, is generally considered to come from a rocket sled test conducted by an American aerospace engineer by the name of Edward A. Murphy Jr. between 1948 and 1949.  This law is often interpreted as a pessimistic view of life, but it can also prepare you for the unexpected by causing you to think about how to plan for and prevent a worse-case-scenario. 

My husband is familiar with this law, but in an entirely different way.  His adage should be, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong unless your name is Benjamin Murphy, in which case, it will all work out in the end”.  Either way, if your day is tanked or you come up smelling like roses like my husband, how you handle the situation is entirely up to you.  We don’t have a magic button to push to reset the events of our day or re-locate people that tend to irritate us, but we can choose how we react to situations.  I am reminded of the moral, “The Carrot, the Egg and the Coffee Bean”.  It illustrates the different ways the three foods behave when placed in a boiling pot of water.  The carrot while strong at first, becomes soft when faced by the adverse condition of the hot water.  The egg though fragile, hardens and becomes stiff.  The coffee bean however, changes the water.  The very adverse condition that changed the carrot and the egg is no match for the resilient coffee bean.

Life has no shortage of daily stressors, no matter where they come from.  Our jobs, health and families can all be sources of stress or adversity in our lives, but they can also be sources of great joy.  Any mom of boys can definitely relate to both sides of that coin, including myself.  I often tell friends and acquaintances it will be a miracle if my boys make it to adulthood.  They are constantly trying to remove themselves from the population with some new trick or feat, but that is a law for another day. 

Recently, there have been no shortage of events that have seemingly “gone wrong” for my family.  It seriously feels as though we have auditioned for and secured a spot on the British comedy television series “The Goes Wrong Show”.  These situations have really tested my patience and resilience in more ways than one.  For anyone unfamiliar with the show, it is a live play in which they create intentionally hilarious fails that are the epitome of Murphy’s Law.  While these fails create barrels of laughter for the audience, such events if encountered in a personal setting would most likely result in tears.

As most of you may have noticed by now, our Editor and Publisher Nancy Kletecka has not published her “Life in the Headlights” editorial for a couple of weeks.  She has been out of the office due to a medical emergency that has included not one, but two emergency visits to two different hospitals.  Hence the events that have “gone wrong” for my family.  For those who don’t know, Nancy is my mother.  It has been extremely difficult to attempt filling her shoes while attending to my other duties here at the paper, be present for my husband and kids, and keep up with the medical updates to forward to family and friends.

Even with all of these adversities raining down on me, I am choosing to look at these events in a positive light, even if it is difficult to do so at times.  This series of chaotic circumstances has challenged me and stretched me to my limits, but I have risen through it.  I have changed the water, accomplishing more than I thought possible.  It has even drawn my sisters and I closer together. 

While I haven’t always handled every stressful situation well, I know I can say that I am more like the coffee bean in the moral.  You too can choose to do the same with all of your trials and tribulations.  Afterall, who doesn’t love coffee?  And as my irritatingly lucky husband says, “Everything works out in the end and if it hasn’t worked out yet, you haven’t made it to the end”.

Amanda Wallace Murphy is the Bookkeeper, Marketing Representative, and now Pro tempore Publisher of the Ulysses News

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here