We’ve all had those days where “anything that can go wrong, does”. This is Murphy’s Law. While often used as a joke, it is a vital mental model for contingency planning. The Air Force uses it to maintain a near-spotless safety record by assuming that human error is inevitable.
Murphy’s Law reminds us that relying on things to “just work” is a mistake because humans are, by nature, “careless idiots”. When you plan a project or a trip, don’t just aim for success—plan for the worst-case scenario. Build in fail-safes and redundancies, like a skydiver carrying three parachutes instead of one. If you account for the “small cracks” where failure could take hold, you ensure that you aren’t left to the mercy of chance.