The Beauty of Serendipity

The moment when you know that you are exactly where you need to be. You don’t once second guess your actions that led you to where you are today, but somehow you trust that it just feels right. Serendipity. The bliss of knowing that you followed your heart, embraced a challenge and disciplined yourself to trust your intuition. Serendipity. There are those few who choose not to believe in serendipity on the tenets that one cannot truly know that they are right where they are supposed to be, but that is the beauty of it. Faith in the unknown. You miss a train because the one that you were supposed to be on goes off the track and crushes the seat that you should have been in. You trip and fall down the stairs, only to look up and notice a sign directly above you reading “hiring” and you’re out of a job. You spontaneously show up to a friends house that you haven’t seen in years only to learn that they are going through a tough time and could really use a friend. Some call it chance, I call it serendipity.

I want to share with you a story. A story of serendipity. She was 45 and single. Worked a 9-5 as a successful consultant at one of the top firms in New York. He was a teacher. 47 and single. Born and raised in NYC he had only been out of the country on one or two occasions. Both rode the metro to work. She would read her newspaper, he would work a crossword puzzle. The same routine each morning. Both wondered if they would forever be alone. One morning the woman was sitting on the metro when she noticed a small white feather float through the metro doors just before the doors slammed shut. Her eyes caught hold of the feather and held onto it in boredom. The metro raced down the tracks towards her office on 32nd street, but still she kept her eyes on this elegant little feather. Slowly it began to float towards her. Dancing across the heads of strangers, catching coats and then letting go to continue on its journey. After minutes of gently floating through the chaos of the metro crowd the feather finally floated right next to her. Her head turned towards the random stranger sitting next to her; still the only thing she noticed was the little white feather. Watching it fall slowly, slowly ever so slowly. Suddenly she raised her gaze to realize that he too had been following the feather from its entrance. The random stranger was the 47-year-old school teacher. The random stranger was her future husband. They laughed, got to talking and the next thing you know they were dating and married. Serendipity?

People say that life isn’t like the movies, but I can’t help but think that these stories are real and could happen to any one of us. If life isn’t like the movies, then what are the movies based on? Sure, we all have fantasies, things that we would like to see happen in our lives that may be slightly unrealistic, but the truth is that these stories have happened to someone somewhere out there. It’s just a matter of who is observant enough to notice and appreciate the beauty in simple little things.