It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

Stories are edited for plausibility. A made-up event has to seem likely enough that you keep reading, so the outlandish coincidence gets cut. Real life is under no such obligation, which is why the things that actually happen to you sometimes sound invented when you repeat them. Your sense of what is realistic was partly trained on stories, and it is narrower than the world.

When you catch yourself saying something could never happen, notice that you are describing a story rather than a limit. Hold your predictions a little more loosely this week, both the hopeful ones and the grim ones.