You will often hear the wise ones, the gurus, the memes saying “Live every day like it’s your last.” and by that they mean, pack as much in as you can. Live life to the fullest. And of course, that’s all right and correct, but have you ever stopped to consider how lucky you actually are? Forget for a moment about cramming your days with fantastic experiences, and instead ponder your very existence.
Now this might be a bit deep for a Monday (or any other day of the week for that matter), but bear with me on this for a second. If you’re one of those people that considers themselves unlucky, mull this over.
The odds of…
Having twins – 1 in 250 (natural pregnancies)
Finding a four-leaf clover – 1 in 10,000
Winning an Olympic medal – 1 in 622,000
Dying in a shark attack – 1 in 7,000,000
Winning the lotto – 1 in 45,057,474
The chances of you being born – 1 in 400 trillion
Yes, that’s right. The chances of you being conceived, surviving pregnancy and being born, scientists believe, are 1 in 400 trillion and may even be as high as 1 in 400 quadrillion. To put that into some kind of perspective the probability of you existing at all comes out to 1 in 10 2,685,000 — yes, that’s a 10 followed by 2,685,000 zeroes – a few zeros short of Jeff Bezos’s latest bank balance!
In other words, the odds of you being alive are basically zero!
By this point I am suspecting that some of you have either switched off or your head might have exploded. And whilst I appreciate that these are well and truly brain scrambling numbers, my point is this; that by saying sensational things, you get an idea of how incredibly lucky and special you really are.
How about revisiting the part about you thinking you’re unlucky and only bad things happen to you. If you consider that you have literally beaten the odds to even be right here right now reading this post, it might go some way to you seeing that the concerns and worries you have in your life in a slightly different light. And even seem just that little bit easier to deal with. Then, over time, if you continue to remind yourself that you are lucky to even be here, that will become part of your own power and go some way to alleviating your general worries and anxieties!
Now you can add all the wise one/ guru/ meme stuff back into the mix. We couldn’t add it before because you have to firstly understand the incredible odds you were up against just to be here! By adding the “Live every day like it’s your last” stuff at this stage removes any element of doubt, makes it easier to believe, and leaves you with a kind of calm knowing or assurance that packing all that stuff in and making all those memories, are unhindered, and meant to be.
So, if, one rainy Tuesday it all gets a bit much, and you find yourself having a little bit of a pity party for one for whatever reason, remember, you’ve done the hard part. Everything else will be a breeze.
All of my posts are written with the utmost sincerity and integrity. This is a look at how lucky we actually are to be alive. It is not meant to simplify the complex mental health issues faced by some individuals or as medical advice. This is for interest purposes only.
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