The Illusion of Possibility

Murphy's law says that anything that can happen, will happen. This is easy to misinterpret. Just because something seems like it can happen, that doesn't mean it can happen.

It is certainly good to not rule out possible positive future outcomes. A feeling of positive future outcomes gives us general hope.

What does not do any good is thinking something could have happened and retroactively kicking ourselves for missing it. While mistakes are beneficial to learn from, it is helpful to understand that some things simply weren't actually possible, as possible as they may seem. The Illusion of possibility.

If we miss a free throw at the end of a basketball game and lose, it is easy to think the game was lost because of that missed free throw. There is an illusion of possibility regarding winning the game and making that free throw. If the free throw was missed, deterministically, it was not possible for it to be made and for the game to be won. The possibility of winning that game was an illusion.