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16 Feb 10 Serendipity: the beauty of randomness caused by conscious effort
Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated.
A few days ago, I wrote about how to make friends with anyone, anywhere. If you apply the principles I mentioned and do it without agendas or ulterior motives with the sole purpose to befriend people and lighten up their day/evening, there is a beautiful side-effect: I like to call it serendipity.
I’ve made a very conscious effort while in Argentina to just talk to random people at every opportunity. I’m here alone, so I might as well try to get to know new people.
After a while of just being a happy, friendly social animal that tries to break the ice, bring joy and fun to situations, and bring people together, strange, wonderful things start to happen..
People start to remember you, new people approach you because they have seen you to be an approachable, friendly guy. People start buying you drinks, invite you to parties, introduce you to new people. A whole new world of strange, wonderful opportunities opens up, simply because you said “hi”, gave someone a smile, saw that someone looked lonely and brought them into a conversation, any conversation.
Serendipity isn’t just a social phenomena, though the anecdote above serves a good example in a social context.
If you create a hundred opportunities both for yourself and for others, bring people together, good things you never expected will start to happen. Random things will start to fall into your lap by what will seem like chance, but in fact it’s more akin to playing the lottery where you hold about 80% of the availably lottery tickets.
In a sense, Serendipity is the practical expression of Karma - not in a mystical sense, but in a real, causal sense: if you make enough good things happen to those around you, eventually you will get something back from somewhere that you never expected, something that far exceeds any investment that you initially made.
It is not mystical or magical, just a result of man’s innate nature for reciprocity: giving back out of gratitude and generosity to those who have shown similar generosity in the past.
