The Ups and Downs

Life is full of decisions (in case you hadn’t noticed). In fact, more than that, I think so much of life revolves around the interplay between our own decisions, (our autonomy, our choices) and external influences (coincidence, other peoples decisions etc). Life is like a game of ping pong (my mother used to say), and try as we like, we can’t play both sides of the table.

As I approach the roundabout I see the bus go past. He is indicating to pull into my stop (which is just out of sight), but I won’t get there in time.
Despair.
But, what if, just perhaps, there are four people waiting at the stop to get on, perhaps one of them has a pushchair, perhaps they will all want to buy tickets with notes, perhaps one of them will ask for a week pass that needs to be printed and put in it’s little pouch, perhaps then if I half ran from here I would make it.
Hope.
A shot is played and I choose to go for it and I make it. A good decision. I save myself ten minutes of bus stop waiting.

As I head home I choose to stop for a cheese pasty before I get on the bus. As I leave the bakery I see a 43 disappear into the distance. Had I not stopped I would have been on it. I wait 20 minutes for the next bus, which is only a single decker, and a few stops later we are told to get off and wait for the another bus (no explanation given).

Stopping for a pasty was a bad decision, costing me 25 minutes of bus stop waiting.

These are some of the ups and downs of my life right now.

I hope I do not take it for granted.