Jerry: You know, life is amazing. I just lost a job and five minutes later get another…same weekend, same money.
Kramer: You know who you are? Even Steven.
- Seinfeld, "The Opposite"


Does the universe have a nasty habit of evening everything out, or is this simply the product of the wishful, overactive human imagination? I’ve been struggling with this question for a while now, and have come to the conclusion that there just might be something out there that makes it it’s sole duty to balance life out…and I've experienced this odd behavior first hand.

Take, for example, the end of my long-term relationship with my ex-girlfriend. I was hurt....nay, crushed. I sulked and moped as I skulked around my suddenly-empty hollow house, but not one month had passed by before I found an amazing woman to call my significant other.

Then last month I got into a car accident (a low-speed fender-bender, thanks for asking Brico ;-). I was forced to pay a $1000 deductible to get my car repaired. The next day the postman delivered a refund check from my mortgage company in the amount of $3000 (they apparently overcharged me on my new loan package).

Last week I misplaced the “pink slip” to my car (I only noticed it missing due to my car accident and my sudden desire to sell my S2000 and buy a new Volkswagen GTI). Digging through several boxes (dusty remnants of my new home purchase that I never really bothered to unpack) I stumbled across an old PDA case. Opening it up, I found two twenty dollar bills neatly tucked away inside. The cost of a duplicate automobile title: $16.

A few days ago I was thinking about looking for another job that encompasses more responsibilities than my current position affords me. Today I received a phone call from a head hunter, and an e-mail from a job placement service, both of whom want to set up an interview with me. This more than caught me off-guard since I hadn't updated my online resume in quite a while and I hadn't been actively seeking a new position.

UPDATE 5.12.06: I decided to pay a few bills today while at work. I filled out the checks, stuffed the envelopes, and affixed stamps...only to find that I was one stamp short. Walking over to Plaza2 (another one of our buildings) I found a book of stamps in the parking lot. What are the odds of this happening? Really...what are the odds? Was this simply an amazing coincidence, or is something else at work here?

These are just a few recent examples of the countless times that something bad has happened to me, only to be balanced out by a conversely positive set of circumstances. Am I alone in my observations? Should I chalk these occurrences up to happenstance, or is there some greater, deeper power behind them?
 

Does life balance out? You be the judge…