About time
A fraction of a second can make all the difference.
It struck me during a romantic comedy, of course. I was watching Serendipity for maybe the tenth time, thinking about the chemistry of the cast, the fantastic supporting players (Eugene Levy! Molly Shannon! John Corbett as a Yanni-esque new-age musician!), the perfect ending, the great soundtrack. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder: why the heck didn’t this movie do better? As rom-coms go, it’d compete for my top ten. Yet it basically disappeared on release.
Hang on … exactly when was it released? Mystery solved. Serendipity was due to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on … September 13, 2001. It landed in US theaters three weeks later to a nation and world reeling from the events of 9/11. It didn’t really stand a chance.
Timing is everything.
Sports are its purest distillation. Runners win or lose by milliseconds. A striker is half a stride away from a pin-point pass. The forehand is a fraction too late, sending the tennis ball wide. The vault’s a smidge too early, and the gymnast hits the pommel horse at the wrong angle. A racehorse’s surge to the finish comes up short. The batter’s timing is slightly off but the right-fielder sees the baseball late and it falls harmlessly to the turf.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how timing impacts life, and the truly random nature of where we end up and how we get there. There are obvious dramatic examples, of course: the eight passengers who disembarked at the final stop before the Titanic’s fateful crossing; people who missed flights or overslept and avoided the events of 9/11. We’ve all had cars run red lights and miss us by what feels like inches.
But our lives are shaped by overlooked quirks of timing, starting with the infinitesimal moment of conception that determines who we are. One instant sooner or later and I wouldn’t exist, at least in this form; the same goes for my sons and theirs and theirs and theirs. And at every moment from then on paths are chosen: where you’re raised, the schools you attend, the friends you meet. Every day comprises countless Sliding Doors inflection points we don’t even think about.
Yet there are also accidents of timing you marvel at. A few weeks ago, I woke earlier than usual on a random Wednesday, left my apartment at a time I’d never left it before, turned the corner to the elevator bank, and met a woman I now can’t imagine being without. Yet if the elevator had come a few seconds earlier? If I’d left my apartment a few seconds later? If she’d done the same, and our universes hadn’t collided at that precise moment?
That’s partly why I find it almost unbearable to think about the sheer chance of virtually all of the most critical, pivotal, and defining moments of my life. I’ve long pondered “what ifs?” big and small; the path not taken or the one walked too long (don’t get me started on leaving Australia at the start of its crazy economic boom and ending up in a country where Donald Trump could be re-elected). Yet there’s a common denominator of those moments when I didn’t take a chance or commit to a particular action: the timing for the opposite course just didn’t feel right.
It’s ironic I even thought I had a semblance of being able to identify the exact right moment. I’ve now realized I didn’t and I don’t; I’m not sure anyone does. We make the best decisions we can at the time we make them, and life moves inexorably forward. Timing is indeed everything, but I’ve accepted ending up precisely where all of those tiny inflection points have led me is where I’m meant to be. I’m grateful for it.
As for what’s next, I’m reminded of the wise words of someone who knew a thing or two about timing, Arthur Ashe: “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” Ashe was talking about how to achieve greatness, and I think it applies to every single moment as much as it does the arc of life. Learn from the past, for sure. But accept where you are, and make the most of what’s next. If you want to put it in rom-com terms: what’s meant to be will be.
A note about whatever this is …
After writing a few thousand articles for newspapers and magazines, I spent a long time trying a bunch of other stuff. I guess I figured what came (relatively) easily must by definition be less valuable, so I wandered in the corporate wilderness, becoming increasingly frustrated and doing work that felt increasingly lousy.
Sometimes with age comes wisdom, and I’ve realized finding something (relatively) easy ain’t a bad thing. So, this is a space where I’m resurrecting writing for myself, on topics weird and wild and wonderful.
Posts will appear when the mood takes me, but I do try to be consistently inconsistent—sometimes it’ll be a couple of days between drinks; sometimes a week. But if you subscribe, you’ll get a email letting you know I’m ranting. Again.