Against The Odds

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

Life is always against the odds. A tiny planet, suspended in the universe, with just enough heat and atmosphere for water to exist and make a habitable world - the so called ‘ Goldilocks Zone’.  And then the right ingredients to make a broth for life to evolve.  The dinosaurs wiped out, so mammals can usurp their rule. Everything, always, against the odds.

I make no case for a supreme being, yet that doesn’t stop life on earth being miraculous - randomly created by a series of unlikely cosmic events - turned out by a wondrous universe. Human existence has always been against the odds. Meteors, bacteria, combinations of molecules, the ‘Big Bang’ itself - all these ingredients that lead to our planet being an environment to produce and sustain human and animal life.  The numbers for these odds are out of my grasp, suffice to say, they’re BIG. And the odds of me and you existing, specifically, are almost zero: a huge number of unlikely events needed to unfold in specific ways at specific times for the unique individual that is you to be formed.

My life has certainly been against the odds.  Forceps delivery, blue blooded, needing oxygen, premature weight. Without the advent of incubators, I would most definitely not be here.  I wasn’t supposed to walk. My childhood GP wasn’t sure I’d survive to my late teens. The odds were never stacked in my favour, yet here I am 61, living in a part of the world I love with the man I love. Luck, choices, chance and a billion things outwith my control got me here - a life I couldn’t have imagined.  Sure, there’s tough stuff and if you’ve read anything else on my , you’ll understand some of my challenges. Here’s the thing though, we all have them. Life can be hard.  It often feels like we’re battling against the odds, because often we are. Our economics, politics - it’s all stacked against us thriving. We have to live deliberately to find any sort of joy and equilibrium in this off-kilter, out- to- get-us world.  The odds may be stacked against us from the outset, yet we are proof of the wonder of life. Let’s try and grasp the miracle while we can and live it - even if it is against the odds!