The Butterfly Effect

The butterfly effect: the phenomenon whereby a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere.

Its crazy to think that every decision we make and every action we take can forever change our future.  Something so infinitesimal can change the outcome of your entire life.  One decision has a ripple effect.  The one change causes a chain reaction causing other things to change and so on and so forth.  This idea is called the butterfly effect because it started with the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings could do something monumental like cause a weather pattern shift in Chicago.  People encountering each other will cause them to affect more people in a different way, which causes those people to affect more people in a different way and so on and so on.  It's almost like every single event that we witness or feel serves as an inspiration to our next action, that next action spurs more actions, etc. etc. etc.

To whoever is reading this, you chose a certain set of actions to get you here.  You did something to think about going on twitter, and you chose to click the link on my twitter account.  Maybe something you did earlier caused you to think about going on twitter. You are now reading this.  Who knows, maybe this will spawn an idea in your brain.  This idea, no matter how small or how large WILL effect you.  You could hate this post and stop reading it now.  No matter what you do, you decided to read this.  Your action will lead to another action.  That action, no matter how small will effect more than yourself.

We could also imagine a scenario where you are born just one minute later.  You arrive one minute later at the hospital.  You're born in a different room.  You have a different doctor.  Your parents have a different conversation with this different doctor.  Your parents effect this doctors life.  He now goes home and tells the story of your birth to his wife.  His wife takes the time to listen to his story.  Both are late for an event somewhere.  If they had been one minute earlier, they could've been in a fatal car accident that they drive by.  Through your birth, you have saved the doctor's life.

Every single experience we have contributes to the future.  Every single decision we make has a ripple effect far beyond what we could ever imagine.  For this reason it is so hugely important that we make the right decisions.  Our decisions do not just effect us.  We as humans are so interconnected.  It's crazy to think about our actions, because their effects can be monumental.