The Incredible Thread Of Life

This afternoon, I got to thinking about the thread of my life, those significant events that have led me to where I am now, to what I am doing, and who I have become.  It was my plan to sit down and create a list of the events that occurred, and by doing so, to illustrate how seemingly random life can be.  As I was running through some of these events in my mind, something quite remarkable occurred - I experienced an epiphany. 

You see, I had been imagining my chain of events as beginning when I had just turned nine years old.  This was the moment when my parents moved the family from our home just outside of London, down to the south coast of England.  Living by the ocean created my love of the beach and of being in and around water, and helped me to create the dream that I held, of one day spending my life on a palm tree lined beach.  An impossible and crazy notion, but one that was to take hold of my heart nonetheless.

So, beginning with this event, I started to think of others.  There are some that I knew were life changing events: giving up on my high school education so that I could work on a factory production line, going to South Africa for the first time, taking the opportunity to move to Budapest, quitting my job with IBM to go backpacking to Asia.  Some events may not have seemed significant at the time that they occurred, but they were the trigger for a change in my thinking about life: being handed a copy of The Alchemist by a friend, talking about life with Sergio, meeting up again with an old colleague after fourteen years and hearing of his life as a scuba instructor in Thailand.  As I went over these events, I thought about my life when I was working at IBM, and how that had been so significant for my story, how working there had provided me with the very opportunities that were to shape my thinking.  And this was the moment when I was struck by a sudden thought: why was it that I was working at IBM in the first place? 

The answer is because of my father.  My father is a great man.  He is my hero and I have been lucky enough to have enjoyed an affinity with him.  Growing up, I guess that I wanted to be like him.  I used to watch him getting ready for work each morning, putting on his suit and clipping his security clearance badge to his trouser belt.  He used to bring home punch cards and computer paper, copies of computer printed pictures and I used to think how cool he was to work at such an amazing and mysterious place called IBM.  Some weekends, if he had to go in to the office, I would accompany him, sitting and listening to the football on the radio, keeping him updated with the scores, watching what he was doing.  I knew that this was the place that I wanted to work, that I had to work.  It became my dream to work for IBM, to emulate my father, and to give us one more thing in common.

So here's what I realised.  If my father had not worked at IBM, my life would probably have turned out very differently.  Perhaps I would have worked there anyway, but I don't think so.  You see, my family moved to the seaside because of my father's work.  If he had not worked for IBM, then this would never have occurred and I would never have developed my love of the ocean, which in turn would mean that I would never have developed my dream of one day having my home on a tropical beach paradise.  My first significant event was not that we moved home when I was nine years old, it was in fact my father commencing work for IBM back in the late 1960's.  My first significant event occurred before I was even born.

Of course, it is now clear to see how all of the lives that came before us, generation through generation, all the way back to the very beginning of life on this planet, have played some vital role in my own life and my own course of events.  The chain of events that shape our lives can be traced all the way back to the dawning of time itself, to the moment of creation.  Every thing that we do changes the future, not only our future, but the futures of every one affected by the ripples that spread out through time and space.  Everything and everyone is interconnected.  All of the threads of lives intertwine to create the great tapestry of life. 

When I stop and think of how it was that I arrived at IBM, how it was necessary for my girlfriend at the time to be made redundant; how I accompanied her to a job fair at a local hotel; where, feeling bored, I decided on a whim to complete an application form for an employment agency; how that agency contacted me two months later to say there was an opening at IBM for which they thought I would be perfect; how the set of skills that I had acquired since beginning my working life had made me the right fit for the role...  It really is incredible.

Is it fate?  Perhaps.  Maybe my life was always going to be this way.  Perhaps all of these events were preordained, necessary to help create the big picture, vital to some future design.  All I know is that each individual link in the chain of events that have brought me to this moment, is a miracle.  Every thing, every person, every experience has in some way linked together and those links are being formed ahead of me, in my future.  I cannot see them, but what I do know is that when I look back from some moment that lies ahead of me, I will again be amazed at the incredible serendipity that has been my journey.

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