Is Murphy’s Law the only misfortune that happens to me?

In this blog post, we’ll talk about Murphy’s Law.

 

If you’re running late, the shuttle bus line is much longer than you expected, the shuttle doesn’t show up after waiting for a long time, and the door closes in front of you. When standing in line at the restroom or grocery store checkout, even if you pick the shortest line, the one you’re standing in seems to be the slowest. Also, when you accidentally drop a piece of bread with jam on it, why does the jam always touch the floor?
Whenever these things happen, people are reminded of Murphy’s Law, which states that bad things always happen to you. Murphy’s Law was first noted in 1949 by Captain Murphy, who was working at an Air Force base. He said, “If there are more than one way to do something, and one of them can get you into trouble, someone will always use that way.” This was used to mean that you should always think about the bad things that could happen and have a plan B. Nowadays, however, Murphy’s Law is used to mean that when bad things happen to you, they only happen to you. Obviously, bad things don’t happen to just you, but everyone can relate to this situation. So why does it feel like bad things keep happening to you?
The first reason is that people believe that unfortunate events happen to them, when in fact they are not unfortunate events with low probability, but natural events that are explained by probability and science. Professor Robert Matthew of Birmingham, UK, proved that Murphy’s Law is not just bad luck, but a probabilistic outcome. He explains this phenomenon by using the example of standing in line at a supermarket checkout. If the number of checkout lanes is 10, the probability that the line I’m standing in will shorten the fastest is 1/10. However, there is a 9/10 chance that the other lines will shorten faster. Therefore, it is probabilistically natural for me to experience a 90% chance that the line I’m in will shorten faster than the one I’m in.
By the same token, when you’re shopping at the grocery store, the chocolate bar you bought to eat on the way home is always at the bottom of your cart, so you don’t take it out on the way home. This is due to a scientific phenomenon whereby a small, bulky item such as a chocolate bar is physically mixed in the cart and moves between bulky items, eventually ending up at the bottom. Don’t assume that this means you’re unlucky and can’t enjoy your chocolate bar.
The second reason is a psychological one: people are more affected by unfortunate and unfortunate events, even if they happen equally, and value them more and remember them longer, while things that go well are easily forgotten. Murphy’s Law is caused by confirmation bias, which psychologists argue is the tendency to recognize memories of misfortune more strongly than memories of good fortune. Contrast this with Sally’s Law. Sally’s Law states that only things that happen by chance in your favor will continue to happen to you. If your life is full of good and bad things, there’s a 50% chance that something bad will happen.
Murphy’s Law explains that when things we want happen naturally, the brain’s wiring is such that it recognizes them as unimportant information and quickly fades from memory. Unexpected information, on the other hand, is perceived as important and is remembered for a long time. This makes unfortunate events feel like they have a very high weight.
There is no rationality in a world where only bad things happen to you. It’s just that for the two reasons listed above, we either feel as if something bad happened when it should have, or we don’t remember the good things that happened. You don’t have to be pessimistic and think that only bad things will happen to you. Everything happens fairly by cause and effect, so instead of thinking only about the unfortunate things that happen to you, you need to make rational judgments and be grateful for the good things that happen. As Cooper, the main character in the movie Interstellar, once said. “Murphy’s Law doesn’t mean that bad things will happen, it just means that what will happen will happen.” This means that when something negative happens to his daughter Murphy, it will happen with a small probability, but it will happen, and you should think ahead and prepare for these negative events.