Blog Category: Serendipity
Do You Know Serendipity When It Appears?
Wikipedia defines serendipity as “the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely.”
It’s going out to dinner with friends and meeting your Forever Love at First Sight and never changing. It’s Louis Pasteur’s experimenting with molds and discovering what ultimately allowed Alexander Fleming to invent Penicillin. It’s losing a job which prompts you to start your own business. It’s an unpredictable result that occurs, most often, quite by surprise from what appears to be a completely unrelated set of circumstances. It’s an apple falling from a tree that gives us Isaac Newton’s insight about gravity.
It’s being at the right time for a completely different reason than what ultimately occurs, but having the wisdom to recognize the value of what you have when you see it. Is serendipity all around us? Is it rare in your experience? Is it more than luck or chance, by definition, since it implies destiny?
Think of at least three life-changing events that, for you, have been the product of serendipity. What made you take advantage of them? How have you honored those moments? What about those times have proven magical for you? Can you trust yourself to know serendipity when you see it – and to act on it?
Have a Great Independence Day! Be free!
Serendipity Defined And Discussed
Wikipedia defines serendipity as “the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely.”
It’s going out to dinner with friends and meeting your Forever Love at First Sight and never changing. It’s Pasteur experimenting with molds and discovering what ultimately allowed the creation of Penicillin. It’s getting fired from a job which prompts you to start your own business. It’s an unpredictable result that occurs, most often, quite by surprise from what appears to be a completely unrelated set of circumstances. It’s an apple falling from a tree that gives us Isaac Newton’s insight about gravity.
It’s being at the right time for a completely different reason than what ultimately occurs, but having the wisdom to recognize the value of what you have when you see it. Is serendipity all around us? Is it rare in your experience? Is it more than luck or chance, by definition, since it implies destiny?
Think of at least three life-changing events that, for you, have been the product of serendipity. What made you take advantage of them? How have you honored those moments? What about those times have proven magical for you? Can you trust yourself to know serendipity when you see it – and to act on it?
Have a Great Independence Day! Be free!
Is There Such A Thing As “Negative Serendipity”?
Please see my P.S. to explain my recent travels as well as my heartfelt thanks to my great friend, Keith Ferrell, for hosting Study Hall for the last six days. Now, on to serendipity:
It seems as though “positive serendipity” gets all the attention. Even plain old serendipity is sufficiently controversial, but what about “negative serendipity”? Have we actually been able to attract difficulty, despair and even disease?
Likely, we can all agree that if we are thinking defeatist thoughts, we are more likely to fail at what we are attempting to do. Perhaps we can also agree that the dynamics on which we focus in our lives actually expand – that is, we’re thinking about them, so they occupy more space in our minds. If so, it’s logical that the more we think about them, the more likely they become.
“Attracting” is rather esoteric: so, consider the likelihood that the possibilities we entertain are more likely to come true than the ones that we don’t entertain. But maybe there’s a “psychic circuit breaker” that prevents those sometimes-entertained images of doom-and-gloom from actually happening – at least for a time. Who knows?
What do you think? One would probably have to “believe” in serendipity to even ponder the question of whether or not “negative serendipity” could exist. For me, there’s enough evidence to think that I need to at least be careful what I “ask for” in the form of negative visioning lest they become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Have you ever felt burdened with difficult thoughts which have sometimes materialized? How have you handled that?
P.S.: My great friend and partner in Being Point Press, Keith Ferrell, has done an amazing job at facilitating Study Hall for the past six business days while I have been in Italy celebrating the launch of THE BACK SIDE OF WONDERFUL by Doug Jack. Doug and I were privileged to be able to launch his book by presenting it to Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee, at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2009 Mediterranean Games in Pescara, Italy, which Doug added to the long list of Opening Ceremonies which he has choreographed / directed including his Emmy-award-winning work at the Salt Lake City Olympic Games.
As Editor-In-Chief of Being Point Press, Keith edited Doug’s first terrific book about how it is to be behind the scenes at events which are viewed by over three billion people and most heads of state on the planet.
Read more about Doug’s book at (feel free to order it, too, before it gets listed on Amazon later this month):
http://www.beingpointpress.com/backsideofwonderful/index.html
Congratulations, Doug, on an amazingly beautiful book! Looking forward to many more! (And maybe more trips to world-class destinations? Thinking London Olympics 2012 – PLEASE!!!)
PSS: Thank YOU, Craig Barbour, for your invaluable networking skills!!!! Hats off to Sydney!!!
Being open to serendipity
How often do we commit ourselves 110%”(or more!) to a project at hand and then find ourselves with no resources left over to take advantage of unexpected opportunities and serendipitous situations that may arise in the course of the work.
What can we do to make certain that we remain not only open to serendipity but also prepared to take advantage of it?
Is there a balance that can be established? Keep some time/money/other resource in reserve for unexpected opportunities? Or is it simply a matter of perspective and an open mind?