“The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident…” **
A couple of weeks ago I heard this news about a homeless man who wandered the streets of Ohio with a sign in his hands asking for a chance to be an announcer again, the guy had done some radio before but lost his whole life (family, job, friends) to drugs and alcohol and ended up on the streets. He got what he wanted and a CBS news reporter gave him a chance to do what we does best and show off his talent. The video got to the right person at CBS and now everybody is offering Ted Williams big contracts to work with him.
The point of sharing this story with you is comparing the past and the present of this guy; his life changed overnight and (at least on the outside) he went from the lowest point to stardom and even though some say things just happen and that it was just some lucky accident I can’t help but thinking of all the events that had to line up in order to change this guy’s life at the exact moment when he needed it the most. Was it just a happy coincidence? Is there such thing as a plan made and written for each one of us?
If you come to think of it, we’re immersed in this “coincidences” all the time and we involuntarily dance to a domino effect that combined with our own decisions shape our lives. Sometimes this chain of reactions brings us something we longed for, sometimes it brings things that are not so good at a first glance but it always brings something that we need.
I think there’s two sides of the coin to this story: the first one is all of the external events we can’t control, the circumstances we’re forced to face (the lemons life gives us) and the other one is the actions we choose to take. Regarding this, I was reading about serendipitous events through history (which I will comment on part 2) and I found two very interesting quotes:
If you come to think of it, we’re immersed in this “coincidences” all the time and we involuntarily dance to a domino effect that combined with our own decisions shape our lives. Sometimes this chain of reactions brings us something we longed for, sometimes it brings things that are not so good at a first glance but it always brings something that we need.
I think there’s two sides of the coin to this story: the first one is all of the external events we can’t control, the circumstances we’re forced to face (the lemons life gives us) and the other one is the actions we choose to take. Regarding this, I was reading about serendipitous events through history (which I will comment on part 2) and I found two very interesting quotes:
“All things are ready if our minds are so” Shakespeare
“Chance favors only the prepared mind” Pasteur
If these quotes are right, they sum up that serendipitous events may only come to reality when we’re ready for them, otherwise they will just pass by unnoticed. So maybe we do have the last say and seredipitous events come to our life whenever we’re ready for them; maybe this guy I mentioned before was done with misfortune and learnt what he had to, he moved onto a new stage in his life in order to start learning what comes next. If this is so, then how are we supposed to know what we need to learn if we don’t know it yet?...
Most of the time my mind looks for closure when it comes to deep diving into this kind of things but about serendipity no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to draw a conclusion, all I know is that everything is possible, everything can happen, even the most unlikely and unexpected events…
** Definition taken from: thefreedictionary.com
Image taken from:http://mantoos.com/entertainment/ted-williams-homeless
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