Chances are a million to one against it.
Odds are not in your favor.
Chances are slim to none.
We all know the “fat chance” speak that accompanies those seemingly hopeless situations, but I am not so cynical when it comes to overwhelming odds.
To the extent I understand the genetics behind my first son Rainer’s death, I still marvel at the odds that tumbled into place when in this whole wide world I would fall in love with and marry a woman with a similar gene tick as mine; a glitch we both apparently have that when combined results in a mitochondrial disorder so rare and fatal that only 25 similar cases in the world had ever been recorded. Some odds, eh? Or, here are other odds. Our doomed genes, again when put together, threaten a 1 in 4 chance of any child we have will be born ill.
I get sick with anxiety when I have to fly on planes. I don’t accept statistics about them being safer than cars. When someone begins, “You are more likely to die in a car crash …” I tune out. What is more likely to happen does not impress or comfort me. I figure it must be happening all the time to someone somewhere. Some life is going to be the 1 in those million to 1 scenarios. So when I hear statistics about people being more likely to die by dog attack or bee bite than shark attack ... or the odds of getting struck by lightning ... those mind-numbing figures, so coldly abstract, like a million to one, do nothing to assuage my fear.
I believe in outrageous odds.
I believe in longshots.
I believe in the impossible.
If I have a buck in my pocket, I buy an instant ticket despite the odds of winning.
