Murphy was here

Seriously, have you ever noticed that the worst things happen at the most inconvenient times? Like, the door of my flat coming off its hinges just when we were about to drive off for a holiday? Or a TV set that expires right in the middle of Super Bowl? Or the exhaust of a car coming off in the middle of a lengthy trip?
It´s that kind of things that makes you go, "why is this always happening to ME?" and curse a certain Mr Murphy who by popular lore is supposed to be the legalistic genius behind the law that governs mishaps.
If anything can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible moment.
But is that really the case? In each and every of the above examples, the impending catastrophe could have been averted. That door had been hard to open for several days, I chose to ignore that instead of calling in a repair man. That TV set had had a somewhat flickering image for months, which, again, I chose to ignore. And the exhaust pipe on my car had been slowly rusting away, again, ignored by me.
The only part that was not predictable about the outcomes was just when desaster would strike.
It´s all too human to procrastinate about having something repaired, as long as it keeps functioning of sorts. Sometimes, we even hide behind the screen of frugality, as in "I don´t want to spend money on having this repaired right now".
And suddenly, what would have been a minor repair had we dealt with it at once becomes a major catastrophe that requires immediate and sometimes expensive action, upsetting our schedules and/or wiping out significant parts of our emergency funds.

Quite often, the human tendency to ignore anything unpleasant leads us to ignoring something unpleasant until it really hurts. Only when it really hurts do we finally start to take action. Sometimes, that means that it´s too late. Other times, it means having to deal with a big hassle instead of a small inconvenience.
 And of these outcomes, it´s not Mister Murphy who is guilty. It´s the one who procrastinated.


Julia