Have you ever sat back and wondered about “what could have been”? Think back on your life and try to find those points at which random chance, luck, providence, or if you believe in such things, the fates, gods, spirits, fairies or gremlins made you decide to take one road instead of another. And because of that weird and, hopefully, wonderful decision your life changed irreversibly. I think we all have such points and generally speaking, we can probably pinpoint them to the second.

Corey, Donna and I spent some time this evening musing over how our lives have been shaped by such chance occurrences. Now, I’m not talking about decisions that you sat and pondered for hours. I’m talking about those split second random things that simply “happened”.

For instance, in October 1997 after having completed my master’s degree at Memorial I had sought to find employment and stay in Canada. At the time I had a girlfriend I didn’t want to leave, and generally speaking, had fallen head over heels in love with Newfoundland. No jobs seemed forthcoming for this foreign student and I had booked a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka with a stop-over in London. My grand plan by that point was to drop in at the School of Oriental and African Studies and perhaps, after a vacation in Sri Lanka, begin studies for a PhD in African studies.

I was to leave that weekend, my bags were packed and my farewell dinner was all planned. On my final Friday afternoon in Canada, I dropped into the Student Union to say good bye to everyone when the then Dean of Arts, Dr. Terry Murphy, phoned and asked if could possibly meet a certain Vince Walsh with the Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web Site Project who was looking for a Graphic Artist. Vince, for whatever bizarre reason, met me and instantly hired me. I cancelled my ticket, and that night’s farewell dinner at the Taj Mahal turned into another non-farewell dinner for Dups.

That single surreal point led me to cancel my academic plans and resulted in me calling Canada home. I had come mere hours away from that midnight flight to London.

Craig pointed out how he met his wife Cathy on his blog the other day. It is a similar story of chance, despite his agonizing decisions later on (come on, we’re guys, we barely have our heads screwed on straight). I sometimes wonder what would have happened had Vince and I missed each other, if Terry had waited an extra day, or had I simply said no and boarded that flight nine years ago. Is there perhaps a ghost of what could have been floating in the ether out there? How many random decisions have I made in my life whose consequences have led me to being alive? Was there a day I turned left on a street and avoided having a piano fall on me? Will I ever know?

I’d like to think that in a universe of infiniteness, there is an alternate reality where that PhD graduate in African studies is blogging at this very moment on how strange it would have been had he stayed in Newfoundland.