40 People Share Things That Happened That Are So Rare, They Seem Nearly Impossible (New Pics)

Redditor u/solateor, one of the moderators, told Bored Panda that the person who "keeps the place running" is u/Hats_Hats_Hats. There's obviously a lot of respect between the members of the r/nevertellmetheodds mod team, and that's awesome news for the members.

u/solateor shared with us how the online community formed. According to them, the sub started right in this thread (and here's an archived version showing all the comments, too). "The sub started when I submitted this gif to the r/combinedgifs subreddit. In the thread, a bunch of users started commenting about the chances of something like that happening, which lead to the creation of the subreddit. A few of us from the comments joined on as moderators, and it was up and running after that," they told Bored Panda that the sub was a hit right away.

The moderators are clearly fun-loving people. For instance, when r/nevertellmetheodds was nearing 100k subscribers, u/solateor made this gif right here, based on the famous Han Solo quote, from Star Wars. "The 'banned' graphic is a reference to the fact that we ban users who mention the odds," they explained why C-3PO got banned in the gif.

The mod shared their thoughts about probability and rare events being seen seemingly 'everywhere.' "If you look at probability though the lens of a bell curve (and it could be argued a bell curve isn't representational here, but if we were) then improbable events are the statistical outliers you see on either end of the curve with very low chances of occurring but get 'air time' and visibility because they are in fact rare," they told Bored Panda.

According to them, even if rare events appear to be seen 'everywhere,' they're really just a fraction of the total events that take place "but make it in front of users to be 'consumed' because they are, in fact, rare."

Meanwhile, another moderator, u/Hats_Hats_Hats, added that one's perspective matters a lot when thinking about probabilities and rareness.

"If you shuffle a deck of 52 playing cards, the arrangement you get is one in about 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. So it's super improbable if you look at it that way. But it's also kind of trivial, which is why we would remove a post that's just 'I shuffled this deck of cards and the result I got will never, ever happen again,'" they said.

"That's obviously a trivial example, but think of things like, 'Yesterday I ate one egg for breakfast, found two pennies on the floor, passed three ambulances on my way to work, got four phone calls before lunch, and got five texts during lunch. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!' It sounds like numerology magic but really that person just ignored the nine socks in their drawer and the eleven emails they got in the afternoon because those didn't contribute to the 'miracle,'" they explained how people tend to pick and choose what information they feel is relevant or should be ignored.

"Wild coincidences are one thing. Genuinely interesting ones that aren't trivial like the deck of cards or reverse-engineered like the 1-2-3-4-5 day at work are different and special and that's why I love this subreddit," u/Hats_Hats_Hat said.

Over the past year and a half, the r/nevertellmetheodds subreddit has grown from 1.7 million members to a whopping 2.1 million loyal fans. The online group is home to folks who document “nearly impossible feats of achievement” and celebrate the incredible odds of doing something that requires either massive luck or huge perseverance. 

Naturally, everyone on the sub is expected to be nice and polite to one another, and bullying or harassment of any kind is not tolerated. However, something else that new members should keep in mind relates directly to the type of content shared on the subreddit. Submissions have to be about nearly impossible feats, and posts that are about deliberate tricks and stunts (i.e. requiring skill and persistence), aren’t allowed. What’s more, you shouldn’t mention the odds of something happening neither in the title of the post, nor in the comments.

Dan, the founder of ModernX, stressed to Bored Panda that success isn’t a straight line. “You will experience detours and encounter obstacles, including failed attempts, on the way to true success,” he said.

“You just have to keep going and not give up. Winners don’t give up. When you win, you reach a new level that is beyond where the majority of people will ever get to. It’s an enjoyable feeling to be a winner,” he was candid that victory really does feel sweet. It’s even better when it’s the reward for your own effort and perseverance, not just due to random chance.

According to Dan, resilience is “essential,” however, it isn’t enough by itself alone. “You also need to have the right knowledge to succeed. If you keep failing, it may be because you're unaware of certain things that are needed to succeed in that particular area,” he shared.

“So, you may need to go back to the basics and relearn them, or learn new, advanced techniques that will allow you to succeed the next time you try. To be a true winner, you should always aim to learn more about your craft,” he told Bored Panda.

In Dan’s opinion, the old adage that knowledge is power isn’t completely true. He thinks there’s a twist to it, in real-life. “Knowledge isn't power on its own. Knowledge is power when used. Get the knowledge you need to succeed, use it and you will then enjoy the power that comes with it,” he said.

The fitness expert also shared how long it takes for someone to form a positive habit, on average.

“It takes about a month as long as a person is consistent and doesn’t try to change too much at once. Focus on changing one or two small things at a time, rather than trying to change too much at once, becoming overwhelmed by the pressure, and then stopping,” he noted that the slow-but-steady approach is better when building habits at first.

Previously, Bored Panda spoke to financial expert Sam Dogen, the author of ‘Buy This, Not That’ and the founder of Financial Samurai, about what to do if you happen to win the lottery. One major issue is that some of your relatives and friends might start fighting over your winnings because of greed or money problems.

“If the winner doesn’t magnanimously share their winnings with family members and friends, they will be seen as selfish and greedy,” the expert warned what might happen.

“I’m all about Stealth Wealth. If you win the lottery, do your best to keep it a secret. Furthermore, if you win the lottery at work or in your investments, never brag about how much you make either. Instead, try to blend in as much as possible. You can always then be more generous with your money if you wish, without expectations,” he said that keeping things on the down-low is a very good strategy that’s far better than blabbing about your amazing winnings to everyone.

“The first thing to do is sit on your winnings for at least three months and live your life as usual. During this time, read as much financial literature online from sources who have no interest in your money. Once you get educated and have formulated a good idea of what you want to do, you can then seek professional advice from a fee-based financial advisor. Or, you can implement your capital allocation yourself. Take your time! There is no rush. You just won the lottery!” he said.

But why is it that so many people seem to rely on luck? Recently, Bored Panda spoke about the psychology behind believing in Fate, as well as good and bad luck with Suzanne Degges-White, a Licensed Counselor, Professor, and Chair at the Department of Counseling and Higher Education at Northern Illinois University.

“As long as there have been humans, there has been a desire to imagine that somewhere some thing or some being or some force is helping direct us along our paths to a positive destination. Many people want to believe in luck because that gives us hope that one day maybe it will be 'our turn' to win the lottery, find true love, be at the right place at the right moment,” she told us.

According to Suzanne, what we believe tends to come true: “Life has a funny way of confirming our self-biases.”

"If we believe we're going to fail at something, we've already set ourselves up for failure. Believing that we carry bad luck around like a cloud gives us a reason not to do our best, not to try our hardest, and to make it 'okay' to fail. While we'd think that a strong belief in good luck would work totally in our favor, there are drawbacks to this belief, too," she explained to Bored Panda.

"When we don't take ownership of our good choices, our effective actions, or our hard work, we are selling ourselves short. It's true that sometimes circumstances can 'work in our favor,' or we can meet the right person at the right time, but we still need to recognize our own part in taking advantage of positive circumstances or setting things up so that we can succeed."

Rather than seeing ourselves as ‘victims’ of life or luck, it’s much more preferable to see that we have some control over our own lives.

“If we have an internal locus of control, we see ourselves as agentic in our world—we know that we can make things happen and we take ownership of both our good decisions and our poor decisions. But this lets us learn from our decisions—how to continue to do things that work out for us and how to avoid things that do not. An external locus of control sets us up to be 'victims' of life or luck," Suzanne told us.

"Research suggests that the people who have 'good luck' are just being more aware of their surroundings, making smart decisions based on current conditions, and actually 'believe' that good things will happen for them. That's a positive bias in our favor—we look for the good, so we're more likely to see it."