Being Point

Tag: predictability

  • “You May Ask Yourself, Well, How Did I Get Here?” – Talking Heads

    Wikipedia serves up a fascinating perspective on hindsight:

    “Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have occurred as being more predictable than they were before they took place.”

    It’s natural to want to explain why events occurred the way that they have; and it’s understandable that, if one believes hindsight is 20-20, that one would have a bias for believing in a high degree of predictability. What hindsight bias suggests is that some humans believe in a world that is almost mechanical in its “cause and effect” nature.

    Yet, events are most often more complex than simple, “If A, then B. If B, then C, etc. In the words of the Talking Heads:

    “And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack

    And you may find yourself in another part of the world

    And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

    And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife

    And you may ask yourself-Well…How did I get here?”

    So, this weekend, ask yourself: “How did I get here” and see whether or not your answers are satisfactory. Examine the ways that you analyze the ability of the past, after it’s already happened, to predict a certain future.

  • 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!