Serendipity

A guest post by Steven Aitchison of Change Your Thoughts

How did you find yourself reading this article, did you see it on twitter, was it part of a regular pattern i.e. you have signed up to Mary’s newsletter or RSS feed or did you happily find it by chance?

This is what we will be talking about in the article today, Serendipity.

Serendipity is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as:

“The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.”

I met Mary Jaksch in a serendipitous way. I was doing a Google search about writing and clicked on a few links, one of which was for a website ‘Write to Done’ a blog by Mary, and Leo Babauta. I thought nothing of it as I didn’t know Mary, but knew Leo quite well. I then stumbled across a blogging course by Leo called A-List Blogging Bootcamp. I quickly signed up for it and lo and behold, our very own Mary Jaksch was one of the facilitators on the course. That is the story of how Mary and I know each other and it all came about with a simple search on Google about writing and ended up me going on a blogging course and meeting Mary.

I love the word serendipity; it’s one of my favorite words. I don’t quite know why I love it, maybe it’s the flow of syllables or the meaning behind it and it’s just a great word. I digress, as I wanted to speak about how serendipitous events can change our lives and ask the question can we increase the chances of serendipitous events happening.

Serendipitous events in Science

Science is littered with serendipitous events that have changed the course of our lives in some way: Alexander Fleming discovering Penicillin happened when he had failed to disinfect cultures of bacteria from his trips and found them contaminated with Penicillium Molds, which killed the bacteria.

Although this was a fortunate accident Alexander had the knowledge and insight to recognize that the Penicillium Mold killing the bacteria was significant in some way and acted on the information. Had he not had this knowledge he wouldn’t have recognized the importance.

Other scientific discoveries attributed to serendipitous events are:

• Isaac Newton’s apple falling from the tree, which led to his thoughts and writings on the nature of gravity.
• Albert Hoffman discovered the psychedelic effects of LSD after he had, unintentionally, absorbed a small amount of it while studying its properties. His bicycle trip home was the first ever acid trip.
• Ian Osterloh, whilst looking at a potential new drug for angina concluded that the new drug had no effect on angina but had a marked effect on something else, the drug Viagra was born.

Does the internet increase the chance of serendipity?

The internet has certainly made the world a smaller place, not literally of course. Without it, I think it is fair to say I wouldn’t have met any of the fascinating people I know, like Mary. Making the world smaller and more accessible also increases the likelihood of happy chances occurring.

I have come across countless people, bought a few products that have helped me, listened to new music that I otherwise wouldn’t have. In fact my freelance writing career was born out of serendipity. I would say the internet has more than increased the chances of serendipitous events happening in our lives.

William McKeen, journalist with the St Petersburg Times thinks there is another side of the argument that says that the internet decreases our chances of serendipity. When we search for something on the net we are looking for something specific and therefore might miss the chance of finding something unrelated as we might in a library. Read William McKeen’s The Endangered Joy of Serendipity here

Steven Johnson, author, wrote a great piece disputing McKeen’s argument called Can We Please Kill This Meme Now which has some great points.

Different types of serendipity

I think there are two different types of serendipity.

Micro-Serendipity – Whereby serendipitous events are specific to us. For example me meeting Mary on a course which led me to be here, writing this article. The main benefactors of this meeting would be Mary and I; however it could lead to others benefitting from our meeting.

Macro-Serendipity – A serendipitous event that can affect a large group of people. The discovery of Penicillin would come under this category.

5 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Serendipity

1. Get out of the house

Imagine you sat in your house all day, every day, just sitting and staring at the four walls, what would your chances of a happy accident occurring; virtually zero. So to increase your chances of ‘micro serendipity’ get out of the house, meet the neighbors, buy from your local shops, go to the library. Although nothing might happen when doing this, it’s good for you to socialize in the real world.

2. Meet others within your field of interest

If you want to be a writer, would you rather hang out with yourself, possibly struggling to write, or hang out with likeminded people who could very well give you the ideas needed to finish your book, or give you ideas for articles etc.

3. Open up your mind

There are possibly thousands of serendipitous events happening around you, which could lead you to change your life in some way, but if you are not open to the possibility then you will not recognize them. Your life is literally a happy accident, open up your mind to the possibility that chance encounters mean something.

Ask yourself if meeting someone three times in different places means something, ask yourself if a book falling on your head means something, ask yourself if finding a college prospectus on a bus means something. By enquiring all the time into signs and their meanings it can lead to unexpected surprises.

4. Follow the signs

Once you have opened up your mind to the possibility of serendipity and the fact that it might be happening all the time around you, start following the signs that you are being presented. You might not believe at all in this strange game but I would ask you to try it for a week and see where it leads you.

To do this ask the question ‘Does this mean something?’ after every event, big or small. Therefore, if you see the same person, three times in different places and it seems a coincidence start talking to them and see what happens.

5. Can it help others

Have you had a micro-serendipitous event that you think could benefit others why not make it a macro-serendipitous event.

Arthur Fry is a good example of taking a micro-serendipitous event and making it a macro one. He wanted to find a way to bookmark his hymnal at church and his subsequent attendance at a seminar on low-tack adhesive led to the ‘Post-it Note’.

What about you?

Have you had a serendipitous moment? Why not share it with us.

Read more by Steven on his blog Change Your Thoughts.