Most would think that Murphy was a pessimist. His pessimism alone drove him to be a negative thinker. In the circumstances, it is neither necessary nor prudent to take him or his laws seriously.
What does Murphy say? And what is the implication of his controversial laws?
This is what I propose to share with you, today.
Murphy’s most talked about law is:
‘If anything can go wrong it will.’ Corollaries are interpreted by many as below:
1. Anything is not as easy as it looks. To me, this is a valid caution. Often times a task appears a bit too easy. It is so because we don’t all the aspects. Thereafter the difficulties that we face in completing the task leave us discouraged. So, if we keep this dictum in mind, we shall be better prepared to do our own job surmounting whatever difficulties come our way.
This attitude could be either due to casual conduct or being over optimistic, over confident and taking things for guaranteed. Hope we all agree it calls for an improvement – for better productivity and happier life.
Yet, if we take it literally and don’t rely on the intent, it remains no longer a caution. Instead of being helpful the dictum will result in procrastination or even pessimistic. Both are equally undesirable.
2. Second corollary: Everything takes longer than you think is very similar to the first one and should be dealt accordingly.
3. Next: It has been interpreted that if there is a possibility of many things going wrong, the one which will cause maximum damage will be the first one to go wrong. I have no personal experience so therefore cannot comment.
4. The fourth corollary is interesting indeed. It says that if you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong and you circumvent these, than a fifth way will promptly develop. This again should be taken positively as a caution.
5. The fifth one is important and needs serious attention: ‘ Left to themselves things tend to go from bad to worse’.
Surely, one must not hope that anything important, be it a relationship, or a project which has hit a stumbling block will improve with time. No, never. It definitely requires your considered action or even ‘inaction’. But in both the cases it should be a deliberate and thoughtful decision. There are more. But we will discuss these some other time
Thank you
