Every decision you’ve made throughout your life has changed your path. Whether the change was subtle or significant doesn’t matter, these things add up over time.

On top of that, every time you were in the position to make a decision, that exact situation only happened as a result of countless other decisions, made by an unfathomable number of people, going back thousands of years.

That mind-bending combination led you to the moment when you met your friends. And each one of them had the same odds of arriving with you in that same place and time.

Still, of those people, there are some that you connect with as though it were meant to be. The idea that such a connection can happen between two people — with such staggering odds of arriving together at that point in the universe — is nearly a mathematical impossibility.

Sometimes I think about what cosmic strings are being pulled, or what game our souls may be playing.

But mostly, I tend to pause and feel gratitude for the incredible friendships that I have because of things I can’t comprehend.