Serendipity

Serendipity is often described as a happy accident. People have also defined it as discovering a treasure while looking for something else. I used to believe that serendipity involved a lot of luck; but I no longer believe that is what happens. I have come to understand that serendipity will happen to you when you have discovered what you were meant to do.

Serendipity never seems to happen to people when they are looking in the wrong place. You will never find gold when you are looking for emeralds. You will not discover the answer to a puzzle if you are playing a different game. You cannot accomplish great things if you have not uncovered your true talents. Nothing ever seems to go right when you are on the wrong path and as the song says, “you will not find gold in a silver mine.”  It just cannot happen.

However, if you study and prepare yourself, go the extra mile and put in 100% effort all of the time, I have found that you will become luckier, happier and ultimately discover riches beyond all imagination. Nature seems to work that way, it simply does.

When you are on the right path, doors will open to you precisely when they must. Job opportunities will come your way when you least expect them…..but when they are truly needed. People will help you at exactly the right time and give you precisely the information or talents you need in order to succeed. And you will have no idea how they knew just what you needed at just that specific point in your life.

Circumstances will conspire in just the right way and you will now see things that you never thought existed before. Training will be offered to you that will prepare you for a promotion you could not have imagined and someone you met in the past will mysteriously appear, just when you need him to. It is hard to explain, but I have seen it happen many times and it has also happened to me.

I firmly believe that when you are doing exactly what you were born to do, you set in motion a series of events and circumstances that allow you to succeed. Earle Nightingale, the late motivational speaker of the 20th century, used to call this “A perfectly placed peg in a perfectly designed hole.” Only you know when your skills and talents meet that ideal opportunity, but when it does, magic begins to happen.

I have also found that there clues left on your path that let you know you are on the proper course. All of a sudden, things start to mesh and your career begins to take off. Mentors begin to appear who show you how to be successful at what you do.  Events start to unfold that lead you down a path you may not have seen just a few weeks ago. At just the right time, opportunities present themselves where you can showcase your talents and then, one day, that “big break” is there, staring you in the face. And at that point, you realize that this is the chance of a lifetime. Serendipity seems to have happened to you and your friends might even call you lucky. You will say that you were just in the right place at the right time. But you actually know differently, because you sensed that this moment had been on its way for quite a while.  You just had to recognize it when it finally made its appearance.

So find that path that you alone can travel. Work hard every day and pay careful attention to what is going on around you. Put in that extra effort and be ready to jump at the opportunity that has to present itself. Your future is unfolding all around you every day and constant preparation will allow you to see it when it finally is standing right in front of you. Serendipity does not happen by accident to anyone. The key is to know when it has arrived for you.

May you have the knowledge to recognize it when it arrives and the courage to follow it wherever it may lead you.