Every few years it seems someone advances another theory about causality and the existence of an underlying order or lack thereof. The universe is random, or it is not—events just happen or they are destined. We meet the people who will play an important part in our lives or we don’t—it’s all just chance. I find the binary nature of this debate wholly unsatisfying. I get that things cannot be random and deterministic at the same time but forcing a decision about the nature of the universe into one or the other corner fails to consider the messiness of human interaction.
We just cannot stand to be orderly. Nope, we insist on free will, and by George we’ve got it. Well maybe not all of us—are orderly—the free will part, that’s what we all get, to do with as we choose. But here’s the thing; everyone chooses but not everyone accepts those choices as their own. Sometimes we insist on the idea of fate, as if there were a conspiracy to move us down a particular path, while other times we assign responsibility for what has or hasn’t occurred in our lives to everyone or anyone but ourselves. To be fair, some of us, some of the time accept responsibility for our choices, good or bad, but even then, we are left with the lingering question why—why were we presented with this particular choice?
We can view our lives as a random pinging against opportunities and threats, propelled by some unseen force playing a cosmic game of pinball, or we can make choices and follow them to their end without judgement—without wondering what might have been if we had chosen differently. But being humans, we want to have things both ways—we want our choices and we want them to be right—all of the time. When they aren’t—right that is, we have regrets, or perhaps we repeat those decisions a few times thinking that the outcome will change. As I said, we are messy and complicated and we are the random factor.
Let’s imagine an encounter between two people. We’ll keep this non-romantic so we eliminate the added layer of complexity introduced by hormones, pheromones and other imponderable matters of the heart. Mr. X and Mr. Y—or MS X and Y if you prefer, meet. The occasion is of no importance to the scenario. They talk a while, discover one or two things about each other that could connect them and eventually their conversation comes to end. Chances are they will never see each other again. Should they meet again, perhaps that prior connection will lead them to a deeper or more lasting kind of relationship, as friends or colleagues or just casual acquaintances. Maybe one of them will learn that the other is in need of a kidney transplant—and decide to offer his. Implausible, yes, but such things have happened.
Or maybe, they discover that they once both applied for the same job. One got it, the other didn’t but as a result went on to take a different job that led him or her to meet their spouse, have a great career and raise a loving family. A stretch, but also something that’s happened. So, where am I going with this? Things are random only to the degree we permit them.
Let me clarify that last statement. What occurs in our lives—the events, the opportunities, challenges and relationships we form may begin as something random but they are only so to the extent we decide to let them remain that way. We have a choice. We can engage and let things unfold, stay in touch, learn more and become involved or we can let it pass us by. Every day we have these chance encounters with life dishing up all manner of possibilities—and in a snap we choose to accept or reject what comes next.
Maybe things go swimmingly, maybe nothing happens that we know about, and maybe things go sour. It all seems so random but it isn’t. It’s just us making choices about when, where and with whom we are willing to invest ourselves. That’s the thing about connections—you have to connect or it’s just a stillborn moment, pregnant with possibility until it isn’t. As you go about your day today you might try an experiment. Make a connection you would normally pass by. See where it leads, it might just be fate, knocking at your door