Murphy’s Law changes my way of life

Heard about Murphy’s Law?

This Law says: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong and many of its variation.

This law means that if you are doing anything that has a probability of failure, then it will fail even though the probability of failure is small. This may sound superstitious!

The Daily Bread devotions on Jan 28 2009 (can be found at http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/our-daily-bread/2009/01/28/devotion.aspx ) brings back many memory of situations where anything that can goes wrong did happen to me. I am a strong supporter of Murphy’s Law since young even though I do not know about this Law then.

One variation of Murphy’s Law: - Every time we talk about someone who is not with us in a group (especially bad things), the next moment, that person appears in front of us!

Another variation of Murphy’s Law (especially for engineers, also my favorite): - “when we solve one problem, we create another new problem”. This is what my parents always say in Teochew: “Catch the tortoise, out run the turtle” (need someone helps to write the Chinese words).

I heard about Murphy’s Law only when I started working. (The above picture is the book I bought while in London). Here are my most common Murphy’s Law situations:

1. Designs that doesn’t work
There was once when I was designing some circuitry for a hand phone. The computer simulations seemed correct and we built the hardware. My colleague built one unit and I did another. His prototype worked as designed but mine didn’t. I then tried to build another. Still it didn’t work and my colleagues stared at me in disbelieve.

At that time, I knew that Murphy’s Law was working against me and we went back to check the simulation. This time we included the tolerance values of each component. It turned out that one component needed a 1% tolerance and the components we use to build the prototype were 10% tolerance. We measured the component that I used. My colleague happened to pick a 1% tolerance. As for me, you can guess it.

2. Last hours of the working Week
Every time when I try to do some engineering experiment late at Friday 6 pm, things just don’t seem to be right. Try the same thing on a Saturday morning (a non working day) and it works perfectly!!

3. No “Luck” at Lucky Draws
I have hardly won any Lucky Draw at company’s celebration lunches and dinners even though one out of three will get a prize. I know of a colleague who gets a prize every year.



Because of Murphy’s Law, I have always studied everything before going to an examination. That is why I love examinations and is always well prepared for it. Thanks to Murphy’s Law, even though at that time I never heard of this.

The way to overcome Murphy’s Law is PRAY before doing anything. I may sound superstitious. But God has taught me to rely on HIM and not on circumstances. He is far above all things. Prayer changes things and prayer changes me!

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
(Isa 55:8,9)