On Fate and Randomness - or how did I get here ?

Lets be clear this is not a religious issue, I don't believe in predestination nor even in the invisible hand of a creator. The world and the lives of the people and other creatures in it, are so utterly random that no one can possibly be managing it on any systematic basis.

What I was musing is how a series of decisions made, altered the direction of life and hence brought me to where I am today. Now this is with the benefit of hindsight but it seems that it wasn't necessarily the 'big' decisions but small ones that perhaps could be described as altering your path. A bit like deciding to go right or left or straight ahead at a road junction.

Having survived to 61 I must have made thousands of such decisions, however a few stand out.

 Someone's choice of career has a large influence on their life, mine seemed to be very random. I was 17 and my family had just relocated from Prestwick in Ayrshire, Scotland to Nottinghamshire. It was the summer before I was going to University and I needed a job. My Father took me into the City of Nottingham and dropped me in the Market Square. (Interesting to note that it would not be possible today due to pedestrianisation, road closures, bus and tram lanes). I got out of the car and looking around saw what appeared to be a very large Department Store, it was then known as Griffin & Spalding, now part of Debenhams. As it turns out is was/is quite large but bearing in mind that my previous local Department store was in a small town........it was know as Houston's and I remember it as the place where I lost my teddy bear........but that's not in this story.

With the confidence of youth and the benefit of a different time, I went in and asked for and got a summer job. All of a sudden I was a Temporary Sales Assistant in the Linen Hall (sheets, pillows, towels etc)

Well I learnt lots from the experience not only about retailing per se but about people ........ customers and staff alike, were a rich vein of characters. I remember the praise and the feeling of pride when I sold a bedspread that had been in the department for years, I recall the attractive sales assistant, married to a Nottingham Forest Footballer, (I think that might have meant something then), who confided in us at coffee break that her husband had never seen her without her make-up. She removed it in the bathroom before getting into bed with the lights off and arose earlier than her partner to get made up before he could see her !

I had the sight of my first crisp sandwich and tasted my first spam fritter, but this random drop off point had an ongoing effect. Later I transferred courses to Business Studies and needed an industrial placement for 6 months of the year, my tutor asked where I wanted to go, I remembered the summer job and as a result I went back to Griffin & Spalding as a management trainee and also worked there on Saturdays whilst at College. 

Then came the 15th February 1971, younger readers will not know, older ones may remember in general but this was Decimalisation Day, when the UK lost shillings, sixpences, pennies, half pennies and thruppny bits. Thus I got involved helping in training the staff for this major change in retailing and as a result spent the next 40 years in Training and Personnel Management. Thus two random accidents caused my life to be different than if I had been dropped somewhere else and the Government had delayed Decimalisation for another year, that's fate I think.

Another great life changing event is marriage and relationships many peoples' lives would have been different if they had married or not married a particular person but again here in my story I see the small randomness effect as more important.

I first met my wife, Mavis, because I joined a dating service, not computer controlled like nowadays but similar in concept matching people together. I joined because the company gave some free membership forms out to where I worked and I took one, rather than not taking one, which was equally as likely.

We met we went out a few times and then she decided she was staying with someone else. I wasn't devastated and didn't think much about it. Then that Christmas she sent me a card. I can't remember my initial reaction but it probably wasn't anything dramatic, but on Boxing Day I was admitted to Hospital with appendicitis, and when home and off work recovering I picked up the card again and rang Mavis.

We were married within a year and together for 30 years.

Lets skip to nearer the present day, how come I am living in a suburb of Nottingham and not in France ?

 'Normal events' play their part, but 10 years of systematic and consistently consciously searching throughout France for the right place to retire to, changed when my wife got ill and her decision making was impaired. 

I appreciate this is not a small decision point as above but one of life's cruelties in action, but the chain of events including being 'offered' early retirement, a property we were going to buy which failed to be built legally, so we pulled out and the need to buy something before we had to leave our previous home all lined up. Do you know that Property Websites idea of 'nearby' is quite esoteric, I put in Ilkeston, it throws up a property in Toton, as the crow flies only about 6 miles, but in a different County and not in an area we had ever considered. Hence I am here but maybe only because the Americians got into bit of financial bother and the property prices dropped like a stone.

I guess things will continue in the same vein, I idly think about making changes but inertia and lack of motivation seem to prevail, but I live on, confident that some day, somewhere, a small decision will be made, by me or by someone else, probably unknown, which may affect the next stage of my life. I think I look forward to the randomness, only time will tell.