January 1987
Perception changes everything, so long as you move first. To that end, I propose that Sod’s Law be abolished in 2025, as far as I can manage.
To illustrate, on the one day last week that I needed to start work earlier, my bus didn’t appear, making me late. This was because the bus company decided to start the bus I was expecting, which was in the wrong place, at a later point on its route, so it would still reach its destination on time. I don’t like being made late for anything, and seeing the map on the bus company’s app that tracks the location of each bus played everything out in real time.
This is a perfect example of Murphy’s Law, as coined in 1948-49 by Edward Murphy Jr, an American engineer on experimental aircraft: “If there are two or more ways to do something and one of those results in a catastrophe, then someone will do it that way.” The further consequences of the decision also apply under Murphy’s Law: the bus I did catch had to pick up all the people that were also missed, slowing the bus down, while standing passengers made physically entering and leaving the bus more difficult, slowing things further. Seemingly more people also paid for their journey using cash over using their phone to hop on and off, and so on and so on.
The Oxford Dictionary may describe Sod’s Law as being the British name for Murphy’s Law - and there is no titular "sod" to speak of - but rather than my bus journey going wrong because anything can go wrong, the way it was exacerbated matches my understanding of Sod’s Law - if it goes wrong, it will happen at the worst possible time, and in the worst possible way.
As much as both Sod’s Law and Murphy’s Law can be delineated as laws of both probability and of expectation bias, I realised my perception was also being stretched by experience. After taking the same route hundreds of times, encountering all possible variations of that journey, I simply give myself the right amount of time to make that journey so I don’t have to expect, anticipate or consider anything at all - I will simply get to work on time, every time, and early enough to mean that I didn’t need to adjust my plans to start work earlier.
And yet, as my journey spiralled, I started bargaining with myself that, at least if nothing further happened, then at least I stood a chance of avoiding arriving late for work. I admitted defeat when I could see there was no way of avoiding the inevitable, and once I finally arrived at work, tired and sweating from the adrenaline of walking the last section of my journey as fast as I could, I turned on my computer and started work… three minutes late.
This is why I want to “abolish” Sod’s Law, at least for myself: not wanting to be late is one thing, and being unable to avoid that can still happen, but passively accommodating the possibility of the worst possible outcome turned out to be the same as fearing it. If something can go wrong, it will, but you can’t then hold yourself at fault for failing to adequately prepare - that creates a situation with no possible end point.
Adopting Murphy’s Law couldn’t come at a better time - in a couple of weeks’ time, the bus drivers will be on strike.
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