May 22, 2015 3 min read

After a delicious meal at my favorite Thai restaurant, I cracked open a fortune cookie. It read, “Your positive attitude can make a difference in the world.” I smiled. Then, I felt weird about smiling to myself in a restaurant. I was, after all, dining alone. Ironically, my self-consciousness temporarily drained the positivity right out of me.

Besides, it was strange taking advice from a slip of paper that came with my Pad Thai. It’s just a fortune cookie, I thought. It’s almost as obligatory as the parsley. Nonetheless, it made me feel good.

P.S. – If you think it was awkward smiling in a restaurant alone, you can’t even imagine how odd it is to use the word “nonetheless” in a sentence.

But I digress, like I do. Earlier that day, I was in a bit of a mood. Let’s go with hangry, as I was hungry and angry at the same time. I wandered into my Thai joint. Immediately, my cantankerous thoughts drifted away. Instead, I faced a new predicament: What was I going to order? I’m not good with decision – even small ones.

Once, I agonized over salad dressing for 15 minutes. The server pulled a, “I’m going to surprise you,” because he was tired of me going, “French sounds good. You don’t see it on too many menus these days, but, on the other hand, cilantro basil sounds daring!”

Daring! As if I was base-jumping instead of just covering up the taste of raw kale.

Meanwhile, back at the Thai restaurant where I was eating noodles and using my noodle, I found myself thinking about the vagaries of fate and free will.

I don’t know where I am on the path between the two ideologies. Can you stand in the middle of that argument? Are you where you supposed to be, or, adversely, is it all random chance? More importantly, why am I taking advice from a choking hazard?

Side note: Honestly, whose harebrained idea was it to stick slips of paper into a dessert? It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I continued to ponder one question: Was that cookie meant for me?

One could argue, given the circumference of my waist, that no cookies are meant for me.

Imagine the journey from factory to box to restaurant distributor to venue to plate. It’s ludicrous to think a cookie had my name on it. Though, I did just drink a bottle of coke that, literally, had the word Michael printed on it. So, there you go. Fate or free will? It wasn’t a problem I was going to solve while waiting for my credit card to come back.

I’m going with fate. It’s more fun to think it was meant for me. Besides, maybe, after reading this, I made you smile, which, in turn, means my “positive attitude made a difference in the world.”

Share a smile with someone. Maybe your positive attitude can make a difference in the world.

Of course, I never took into account that some people from all over the United States might sit down in their favorite Asian restaurant and, after dinner, get that exact same fortune.