Serendipity: turn of favourable events

The city of Serendip is located on the island of Ceylon, which is now called Sri Lanka. The king of Serendip had three sons. One day he sent them out into the distance to find the key to happiness. Each of the three brothers happened on situations that led them to change their preconceived ideas of the most precious thing in life. None of the princes had found the treasured key, but they had repeatedly come across things of great value that they had originally ignored. When the three brothers finally returned to their parental home, they told their father that their quest for the epitome of happiness had brought them a journey full of unexpected fortunate happenstance.

The king himself enjoyed to stroll along humble pathways to appreciate the secrets of life that emerged before his openminded, attentive gaze. He told his sons that he had found the most precious thing in the world just outside the walls of the palace. Blessed with feeling inner joy he happened to discover something new in ordinary things. His conclusion was: The art (of opening to serenities) is to expand your senses. That way you can unexpectedly come across pleasures and insights.

According to the fairy tale, three Persian princes sailed off to make their fortunes in the "land of silk", an island called Serendip. (Today, the island is known as Sri Lanka.) Along the way, the princes made all types of wondrous and delightful discoveries about the island, and learned things they never expected. One such learning was purported to be the discovery that a mule blind in its right eye had recently traveled the same road. This was discovered when they noticed that the grass had been eaten only on the left side of the road.

I am convinced that the way we lead our lives – over planning, overbooking, developing hard lists of goals and objectives, cramming our schedules full, placing so much importance on being very very busy, and never looking up from our devices – is tragically shrinking our chances of encountering serendipity. I also believe that serendipity is one of the best parts of life. I recently quit my job and one of my many reasons for doing so was a desperate need to be more open to the wonders I have inadvertently closed myself off to due to having my calendar booked with a meeting every half hour. Luck and serendipity are very different.

Luck is good fortune. Serendipity is the act of finding something valuable or delightful when you are not looking for it. In information technology, serendipity often plays a part in the recognition of a new product need or in solving a design problem. Web surfing can be an occasion for serendipity since you sometimes come across a valuable or interesting site when you are looking for something else.

Serendipity is when your alphabet soup spells out "Eat me." or there's a rock in your shoe, and it completes your collection. Or you take a summer job herding sheep and wind up falling in love (consequences notwithstanding). Even you buy an old used book, and the margin contains a proof of Fermat's last theorem. Else you take your dog to the park and there's an ultimate tournament going on. Also you're on a camping trip and it starts raining.

A moment before, you had been thinking your oatmeal was too dry. Or then you decide to try to hold out a couple extra days before doing laundry, and then a dread virus triggers the zombie apocalypse. Finally, you get in an accident with a truck carrying avocados, and you just bought a huge bag of tortilla chips and in the end right before you get up for a bathroom break, the FedEx guy arrives. Your cheating ex sent you more flowers. Cheers!