Let's close our eyes.
One of my favorite words is serendipity.
There is something poetic Enigmatic about this word and what it means.
We know there are some words when you try to explain them,
You first have to pause because they are not easy to explain.
But for someone who knows the meaning,
Just hearing the word will bridge this gap in no time.
And I am talking about the word serendipity.
But I am not talking about the concept of serendipity but the experience of serendipity.
I don't think it can be dismissed as something supernatural like we do with luck.
You know something that is not in our control.
I think there are some prerequisites that can be that can cooperate with serendipity.
So that surprise,
Awe,
Is a natural reoccurring phenomena in our lives.
It is not a natural reoccurring phenomena.
It is not a natural reoccurring phenomena.
The most fundamental prerequisite that I think is relevant is being open for serendipity,
Being open to be surprised,
Being open to awe.
That can only happen if we stop insisting how things should be,
How people should be,
Or how situations should be.
The moment we are caught up in shoulds,
The only reoccurring phenomena in our lives will be disappointment.
The fact that we expected something,
Most of the times that will happen is what we expect never turns out the way we expect it.
And only on a few rare occasions it turns out to be better than what we expected.
But unfortunately when that happens,
We raise our expectations for the next time and keep raising the bar or maybe lowering the bar for disappointment.
There is no recipe on how to be open.
It's one of those things that we have to find our own recipe.
Sometimes it is the negative of the recipe that helps us.
What I mean by that is,
Once we understand what being closed looks like,
Feels like,
We just have to be,
We just have to stop being closed and automatically we are open.
That's why if we stop insisting on how things should,
Would,
Can,
Could be,
Maybe it will help us find out for ourselves what being open looks like.
And I tell you,
Once you find out what it looks like and more importantly what it feels like,
Going back to being closed would feel like going to prison.
It won't be a choice anymore.
It's just going to be a default state.
Once we are open,
We have to be present too.
The only distinction I draw between being open and being present is for pedagogical reasons.
I don't think you can be open without being present.
Normally,
We go about our day with such a fixed idea of what the day should be,
That most of the times what we find during our day is familiar stuff and we are happy in it.
Nothing wrong in familiarity,
But it makes life very mechanical.
And the reason we find familiar stuff is because we are looking for familiar stuff.
And we are looking for something that is very,
Very important to us.
And we are looking for something that is very,
Very important to us.
But if we are truly present and we can leave the idea to find what we are looking for all the time,
We might find hidden treasures here or there.
I remember going to an event a few years ago and the conductor of the event asked all of us to take our phones out.
And notice how many icons we have on our phones,
On our home screen,
The order of the icons,
Etc.
Then he asked us to put our phones away.
The next question he asked was,
What time did you see in your watch?
Or in your phone,
Sorry.
And of course,
None of us had,
Most of us had not seen the clock that was right in front when we pulled our phones out.
The point that he was trying to make was we find what we are looking for.
We were looking for icons.
We found the icons.
And I do understand some of the times we need to be looking for specific things.
But most of the times our attention is just free.
It can encounter whatever is possible.
If we are not open and if we are not present.
And the idea of what we are looking for is also not present.
Surrendipity may just be around the corner.
The last thing about serendipity would be to celebrate it once we do encounter it.
Either by quote-unquote luck or by being open and present.
Either way there is an element of intrigue,
Mysticism about when serendipity happens.
But if we celebrate it,
If we embrace it and we keep the mysticism,
The intrigue alive by not dismissing it as luck or something that happens once in a while.
Then we are inviting serendipity in our lives.
It's like inviting a guest.
This was a story told to us while growing up in the Indian culture.
Where you clean your house,
You put everything in order and wait for the guests to arrive.
And in India guests arrive,
At least they used to,
Anytime.
Time is pretty stretchable there.
And that's what kept the intrigue going.
Same thing could be true about serendipity.
Invite it in.
It could be as simple as you finding something that you were looking for a week ago.
But you find it today when you were looking for something else.
You were thinking about a friend and suddenly they text you.
These moments of serendipity can still light up our day.
Make uncertainty our friend.
They're not knowing.
They can go from being intolerant,
Intolerable,
To something we're looking forward to.
Thank you.
