Luckily I got hit by a car

After being hit by a car earlier this week, I started thinking about luck, and how I feel about historical events in my life.

I got hit by a car on Sunday. I'm mostly recovered, but my partner is still in a lot of pain. Nobody was seriously injured though.

Was that bad luck? Good luck? Just a thing that happened?

I'm taking it as good luck, and the same goes for every life event so far.

Every accident. Every frustration. Every time I felt listless and depressed.

That doesn't mean those things felt good at the time. But I wouldn't change it, if given the chance.

If any of those things were different, I wouldn't be here, now, today, writing this. Life would be different. The butterfly effect would make sure of it.

Different. Maybe worse, maybe better. But different.

If we left the house half a second earlier, I might be dead. Two seconds earlier, I would've been almost hit by a car. An hour earlier? Maybe hit by a different car.

Small changes earlier that day could've caused those seconds of delay. Tiny changes last year might have meant I wasn't even in the country.

An ancient Chinese parable talks about how we can never know whether an event is good or bad, without being able to predict its impact on the future.

I wouldn't re-roll my life, if given the chance. So everything leading up to this point?

Good luck.

I'm acutely aware of the fact that this reads like toxic positivity. And I certainly don't want to minimise any awful things going on in your life right now.

You have every right to be sad, angry, and frustrated. Don't try and repress those emotions. It's ok to feel.

I think I've just accepted that bad things are going to happen. But bad things have always happened. And my life still doesn't suck.

So hopefully this will be the same.