Murphy's Law in Effect

Bad luck is something that seems to haunt people and I'm sure that all of you assume that you have the worst luck; nothing ever goes the way that you plan. I'm also very sure that none of you can exactly pinpoint where your luck goes wrong. Well I can. Your bad luck is a result of Murphy's Law; a law that affects us all. No matter how hard you try to escape, Murphy's Law will find you and turn things from bad to worse.

The most popular version of Murphy's Law is "Anything that can go wrong will". From the most failsafe plan to the faultiest, Murphy's Law will make something happen that was not expected. Murphy's Law was named after Captain Edward A. Murphy an engineer in the Air Force. Captain Murphy was in charge of a project designed to determine how much sudden deceleration a person can withstand in a crash. The project involved rocket sleds with sensors that recorded the acceleration of the sled so they knew when to stop the project if the G's got too intense. The project however hit a big bump in the road when the sensors didn’t work and almost killed the sled rider. This was because the sensors were installed backwards (yes it was possible to install them backward for whatever reason). When Captain Murphy found this out, he cursed the man responsible and said "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it ". Soon afterwards the sled rider was in a press conference and when asked about the good safety record on the project the rider "said that their good safety record on the project was due to a firm belief in Murphy's Law and the necessity to try and circumvent it". This quote was picked up by many different people, published in magazines and soon took off. Murphy did not however invent the law but just gave his name to it. The traditional version of it is actually Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives which states that "if anything can go wrong, it will". This was popularized by writer Larry Niven. Niven depicted a space culture that professed a religion of the dread god Finagle who made everything go wrong. Either way, this Law has become the downfall of humanity and mankind as we know it.

Murphy's Law however is not just "anything that can go wrong will", there are many different sub divisions within it, ruling over every aspect of life. There are laws over love, "all the good ones are taken", EMT laws "All bleeding stops, eventually", to laws about learning "You never catch on until after the test". Murphy's Law can even be taken into consideration when working on a public speaking speech such as this. Try to follow and remember your own experiences similar to this situation filled with fun examples of Murphy's Law. You sit down to do your speech and you notice your room is a toxic waste dump. Instead of doing your public speaking project, you must clean your room so you are in a comfortable atmosphere to do your work. This follows Murphy's Law because whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first. Once you finally sit down to start, something always goes wrong, even as minor as your keyboard not working; anything that can go wrong will. Once you finished writing after multiple brain lapses and you go to print it out, your printer is not working. This is not so bad because there is an extra printer in the other room and after setting it up you find out that it needs new ink showing every solution breeds new problems. Finally after you get the printed copy you need note cards but only have 3*5's. This is no big deal as you go to the store to get note cards but come back with unlined 4*6's. Although seemingly fool proof to show that they are unlined, these note cards can be bought by an ingenious fool who just picks up a pack without examining it. Besides the fact that your pen did not work on the note cards, you give your speech, after practicing it millions of times, and come up too short or too long and you realize all that work was for nothing and your failure was due to Murphy's law. These laws, although humorous at times, are very dismal and add up to a quite lengthy list of tragedy and irony. Even if you think you are escaping Murphy's Law, just remember if everything seems to be going well, you've obviously overlooked something.

Now some people curse Finagle and Murphy for coming up with these laws and damning humanity under bad luck. This is just preposterous. Murphy and Finagle did us a favor by pointing out the obvious on how anything that can go wrong will. If Murphy and Finagle are not to blame then who is? Me personally, I'd blame the cosmos. Whatever is in the heavens, God, the stars, Elvis, is the cause of this all. Why? Because they enjoy it. They enjoy the humorous and ironic situations us puny mortals are faced with everyday.

The most obvious question that all of you are asking is how can we escape Murphy's Law; there must be a way. Unfortunately, there is none. One of the little fine prints in Murphy's Law is if you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared and unforeseen, will promptly develop. Much to the disappointment to everyone, this is the way life works, get used to it.

As dismal as Murphy's Law is, you have to at least break a smile in the irony of the big picture and imagine God cracking up over your misfortune. You can also add on to Murphy's Law by adding on other unforeseen problems that you have run across and have hindered your life. Even when things seem the worst, think of this; smile today because tomorrow will worse.