Day 5: A Chain of Chance

I went out on a midnight walk tonight. My daughter decided not to go to sleep and my wife was exhausted, so Daddy and daughter (Zinnia) sent Mom to bed and went for a stroll.

Zinnia wasn’t so excited about the idea at first, but within a block or two, she was sound asleep against my chest. It was a lot warmer and clearer tonight than usual. The stars were bright and the crescent moon reminded me of childhood summers spent sleeping out on the trampoline.

I felt less observant and more reflective tonight than I usually am in the mornings. Perhaps it is because night is the time to wind down and reflect on the day’s events, whereas morning is the time to be on the lookout for new experiences. The daily cycle is one of the most profound phenomenons in life. We can have had the worst day one day, only to have the best day the next. No two days, even in the most routinized lifestyle, are ever exactly the same. My morning walks serve as a reminder to always see the spectacular in the everyday. I finally realize why my Dad used to wake me up every morning for school—I’ve never been able to wake up to an alarm—always repeating the same, optimistic phrase, “Wake up Mike, it’s a new day!” He was right. Every day is a new day, and it’s up to me to make the most of it.

As I walked, I began to think of how life is a chain of chances, each chance linked to the next. In everything we do, we take a chance. Some links are low-risk: if I go to sleep tonight, I will wake up tomorrow; if I go to work, I will get paid; etc. Yet, even these low-risk decisions involve chance. There is always a chance that I won’t wake up. There is always a chance I won’t get paid. There is always a chance.

It seems, however, that the length and make-up of our chain depends much more on the high-risk chances we take, chances where success brings complete happiness and failure brings the deepest depression. We take a chance to give ourselves completely over to another in marriage, aware of the ever-increasing rate and disaster of divorce. We take a chance to have a child, cognizant of the realities of morning sickness, miscarriages, still births, emergency c-sections, birth defects, etc. We go to school for years aspiring toward that dream career, mindful of the increasing joblessness of recent graduates.

While wrapped in thought, I passed a private orchard of fledgling, but healthy looking fruit trees.

I thought of how the chance the orchard’s owner took in planting and caring for the trees is fundamentally the same chance we take in getting married, having children, or getting an education. There is a chance that those trees will never bear fruit. Late frosts may freeze the buds, strong winds may break the branches, and worms may eat the fruit before the owner ever gets a taste. But, those young trees, with the proper amount of water, sun, and pruning, may grow to bear the most delicious fruit the owner has ever tasted.

Recognizing the risks in all chance, it can be tempting to take the securer route. Never marry, never have children, never work toward that dream career, never plant a tree, and thus, never feel the sorrow of divorce, of birth defects, of rejection, of frozen fruit. It may be tempting to live this life of settling for self-security, but settling always robs us of the joy that could have been. The settler may never divorce and may never be rejected. But, the settler will never experience true love. The settler will never make funny faces at their daughter until her laughter fills the soul with the most profound, inexplicable joy. The settler will never whistle at work. The settler will never taste the delicious satisfaction of having planted a seed and watched it grow. I feel sorry for the settler.

Come what may, I’ll always take the chance to experience greater happiness, despite the risks of failure, before I ever settle. Speaking of which, it’s time to go to sleep, chancing that tomorrow will bring a new day.