Serendipity

Serendipity: The outcome of where one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else completely unrelated. It can bring about circumstances and lead us down roads that we never would have dreamed. Sometimes serendipity can align us into the perfect situations where we discover a new truth and reality, when we never expected to be searching for it in the first place.

One of my all time favorite movies is a romantic comedy titled Serendipity starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. The couple randomly meet on Christmas Eve while attempting to purchase the same pair of gloves. They end up falling in love over an innocent evening of ice-cream and ice-skating. Unfortunately both are already in relationships and agree to go their separate ways. She refuses to provide her phone number or even a last name, but believes that if it's fate, then they will eventually end up together again. Years pass after the night that they first met, both become engaged to other people and are living out their separate lives. Still convinced that one day they'd end up together, they again reunite through the solid clutches of fate with the realization that they were meant for each other all along.

So that's a very sweet and romantic example of looking at the power of serendipity. But how often do we really dismiss or ignore our own serendipitous destiny just because it didn't fall into our specific plans? I think it's one of the most commonly overlooked effects in life. Quite often we attribute it all up to coincidence and miss the message and opportunity entirely. Can all of the unanticipated occurrences we experience really just merely be happenstance? Or perhaps destiny is far more powerful than we can ever imagine.

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.” ~Joseph Campbell