A social scientist dispels people's tidy versions of reality and delves deeply into the theories of random chance and chaos to demonstrate that the world really works through random events that can alter the trajectory of our lives.

Changing anything changes everything -- Everything doesn't happen for a reason -- Why our brains distort reality -- The human swarm -- Heraclitus rules -- The storytelling animal -- The lottery of Earth -- Everyone's a butterfly -- Of clocks and calendars -- The emperor's new equations -- Could it be otherwise? -- Why everything we do matters.