Your Odds Of Being Alive

Your Odds Of Being Alive

According to my research (a VERY brief Google search), a miracle is:

  • a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences.

More on that later. First, let?s talk about you.

Specifically, the odds that you?re even a thing.

In a 2011 Tedx Talk, self-help author Mel Robbins announced that the odds of being born are one in 400 trillion.

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Dr. Ali Binazir, who works at Harvard and has degrees from Berekeley and Cambridge, was in the audience in 2011,

He calculated the odds of your parents meeting, given the sheer volume of humans on Earth at any given time. Then he considered the chances of them having a child. Because that wasn?t enough, he also factored in the odds of your ancestors meeting.

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His conclusion: ?The odds that you exist at all are basically zero.?

If that doesn?t boggle your noggin?, here?s a story that highlights just how unlikely your existence is by comparing it to this chain of events:

Imagine there was one life preserver thrown somewhere in some ocean and there is exactly one turtle in all of these oceans, swimming underwater somewhere. The probability that you came about and exist today is the same as that turtle sticking its head out of the water ? in the middle of that life preserver. On one try.

For the visual learners amongst us, here?s a neat infographic:

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Let?s consider for a moment the odds that our ancestors developed a shared symbol system that managed to survive and evolve over generations, that someone created computers [which used to be the size of buildings] and smartphones [that you?re holding in your palm], that I took a few minutes of my free time to tell you ? using that shared symbol system ? how miraculous it is that you and I or anyone even exist at all.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ? Arthur C. Clarke

As we progress through higher and higher levels of abstraction about this very moment, things start to look more and more like ?a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences.?

Every moment of every day is shaped by your beliefs, your beliefs about yourself, what is possible, and what you are worthy and capable of. If you believe that something is impossible or that you are unworthy of love or success or companionship, your behavior and actions will reflect that.

On the flip side, if we choose to see things? most importantly, ourselves ? as miracles, our actions and our behaviors will reflect that.

Our beliefs matter. It shapes our behavior which shapes and creates our world. This becomes our destiny, who we are, and the world we create.

You are a miracle.

What would you do if you believed this to be true? Who would you become?

What might happen, what might be possible, if you chose to see yourself as a miracle?

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This story is published in a Few Words, Medium?s brand new publication which only accepts stories that have less than 500 words.

If you have a few meaningful words to say and want to be a writer in our publication, visit our page.

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