Every day, we literally take tens of thousands big and small decisions, consciously or unconsciously. From priorities we set at work, to stories we tell to friends, from which shirt to wear, to what we have for dinner. In this blog post, I would like to explain how each of these tiny decisions can change the course of events on the long term, and how this can impact the entire world.

In 1961, Edward Lorenz was using a numerical computer model to rerun a weather prediction, when, as a shortcut on a number in the sequence, he entered the decimal .506 instead of entering the full .506127 the computer would hold. The result was a completely different weather scenario. Lorenz published his findings in a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences noting that “one meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull’s wings could change the course of weather forever.” This became known as the butterfly effect.

Let’s imagine Lorenz didn’t enter his decimals on a weather prediction, but on a prediction of the course of your life and the course of history. To help you understand this, rather than using some vague hypothetical theory, I’d like to illustrate this (fictitious) story with an example.

It’s a sunny day in Midland, Texas, in 1954. It’s 8:00 am and a man is about to leave for work. He walks out of his home, closes the door behind himself and walks towards his car. While he opens your car door, he notices he is  not wearing his watch. He thinks for a couple of seconds and decides to walk back home to take it from the kitchen table. At 8:01 am he walks out again, to his car, heading for another day at work. 30 seconds later, he hits a young child crossing the street unnoticed. The child is dead.

Sorry for the unexpectedly shocking course of events, but I am trying to make a point. Now, look at the following scenario.

It’s a sunny day in Midland, Texas, in 1954. It’s 8:00 am and a man is about to leave for work. He walks out of his home, closes the door behind himself and walks towards his car. While he opens your car door, he notices he is  not wearing his watch. He thinks for a couple of seconds and steps into his car. After all, you don’t really need that watch, do you? He drives away, heading for another day at work. 30 seconds later, he looks in his rear-view mirror and sees a young child crossing the street.

In the first scenario, the child is dead. In the second scenario, the child is alive. Let’s assume the second scenario actually happened, and that the child is still alive:

• The child grew up, and the young man married a girl (which would not have happened had he been killed in a car accident) he met at a barbecue (where he would not have been had he been killed in a car accident). Had he actually been killed in a car accident, it is likely that the girl had married someone else. And the guy she would then have been married to, had not married the girl who he would have married in the first scenario;
• They got two daughters – twins – which they would not have gotten had he been killed in a car accident when he was a child;
• The young man went into politics and had quite an impact on his country and the world, which would not have happened had he been killed in a car accident when he was a child.

Oh, check here who that child could have been.

Small decisions (or the lack thereof) have the potential to change the course of your life and the lives of others, and potentially the entire world. I would certainly not recommend you to consciously think over all tiny decisions you make every day – that will probably turn you nuts. But it doesn’t hurt to think through this concept and become more aware of the processes that lead to a certain outcome.

Looking at it from a different perspective – doing something small for another person can have a great positive impact on one’s life. Later on, I will write a post to explain how you can radically change your own life by taking a couple of small decisions.

Did you ever take a very small decision that, in the end, had enormous consequences? Please leave a response to this post!

Photo by miamiamia