Lately I’ve been thinking about serendipity. You know, those little things that happen that might just be meaningless but feel more like a sign. When the girl next to you at the gym has that exact water bottle you are thinking of buying. A friend you were thinking about all week text’s you or recommends a book on a topic you have been really curious about.
Sometimes it feels like it's happening non-stop, like you are almost being shown the path through your day or week.
My left brain assures me this is just some form of confirmation bias or pattern recognition. I am looking at buying a water bottle so I am paying extra attention to water bottles. The fact someone brings a cool, in-style, bottle to my cool, in-style gym class is statistically probable. I think about many people over the course of a day so I just notice when one of them contacts me; many likely didn’t. A good book recommendation, well like attracts like: it would be more unusual for a friend not to recommend a good book.
My right, unicorn, brain assures me it’s something much bigger than that. The “universe” is trying to send me a clear message. Like when the champagne I ordered arrives on the same day as we have something awesome to celebrate. That has to be a sign.
The other day I randomly checked the mail before we left town and my new driver's license was there. The drivers license I needed to get on the plane. I felt like someone was looking out for me that day. Or when I forget to check in with my friend. And forget to check in with my friend. And forget to check in with my friend - and then, the day I remember to text her, she emphatically tells me she just arrived in LA for a one day trip and is free for lunch!
As a trained lawyer and dedicated A-Type, my default belief is that I need to exert my will onto the world to make things happen. The martyr in me (or should I say the martyr in my ego) tells me that effort - and my effort - is the only way anything will get done. The more days I spend on this planet the more I realize that I don’t need to will everything into existence. That sometimes the information and the opportunities just kindof come to you.
Serendipity is a recognition of those opportunities. The doors that are open when others are slammed in our face; the connections that are effortless when others are being dismissive; the amazing new investors that (eventually) present themselves after your last round fell through.
We have more knowledge available to us than we are able to comprehend. We have access to knowledge we are incapable of actively processing or actively knowing. Things happen that are unexplainable, magical and powerful. Unicorn dust. Maybe?
Sometimes it feels like an accident and sometimes it feels like destiny. But really it is the outcome of prior effort: the harder you work the luckier you get. Accidental destiny doesn’t mean we don’t do the work but gives us license to be a little less rigid. A little less impatient and forced, letting things come to you.
Allowing inspiration and curiosity to be part of the process so that you can see the random - and not so random - things that cross your path. Pause in the moments of chance and surprise: whether these are good or bad. What information are you being given? What else is possible right now?
