Serendipity and me…

This is my 51st post on this blog! It feels great to be half a century old..may I never run out of things to say!

Def: Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely.

When I decided to go travelling, I never had a big dream or desire to travel the world, I didn’t ever envisage myself doing the whole backpacker thing. My friends and I did Caribbean holidays in style (yaknowharramsaying!), we talked about travelling, but it was just talk.

At one point I concluded I didn’t want to live in the UK for the rest of my life and thought about Brazil, it was just a decision I made in my head. Then I received The Alchemist as an xmas gift, I felt my heart stir, all the previous conversations and thoughts linked together and knew I had to go travelling or I would be miserable for all eternity.

The last thing I was expecting 5 months before I left was to be offered a new job in my ideal career (a friend contacted me out of the blue, I wasn’t job hunting). They were happy for me to go away for 6 months and guaranteed me a job on my return. Sorted, cue the best 6 months of my life.

On the Monday just gone I got an email out of the blue offering me the opportunity to test out an idea I’ve had for a long time. This person did not know me, they simply found my email address via my ramblings and various trips around the dubya dubya dubya and sent out an email asking a few questions. Now I have the opportunity to see my idea come to life. They came across me by chance.

If we were talking about luck I would be the winner of the £110million EuroMillions lottery last night (one ticket in Spain got all that cash!!!!). I’m not lucky, but I’m open to seeing things others sometimes don’t see.

Above all I’m a big believer in regretting the things you did and not the things you didn’t do, so if you find serendipity knocking, take a second to think about what its telling you.

And now for the geekery; there is a lot of web talk about catering for serendipity searches. Developers and PhD students are often exploring the phenomenon and trying to create those experiences (I’m not convinced!!). I’ve come across this site that offers you a search which claims to give you nice surprises. Didn’t do jack for me so go figure! www.serendipitysearch.co.uk

(Photo above I took in Salvador, Bahia in Brazil. The writing is in Yoruba, and translates as “God, I am grateful”)