Serendipity

All the time, Marlene. So many I can't count them or even think of them right now. If I think of one, I'll post it. I know what you mean. I call them synchronicities.

Ok, I thought of one. My daughter moved home for a year about 3 years ago. It just so happened that in that particular year I lost both parents and my mother was dying at home. If my daughter had not been there to help me, I would have lost it. That and cleaning out the house. She saved my bacon. She moved home for completely different reasons, but the timing kept me from having a nervous breakdown.

Precisely, Mary!

I went to Scotland to shoot some fashion commercials, using models that we hired in London. One model named Fiona was from Belgium and we became friends on the shoot.

Years later my cousin called and invited me to lunch at a new restaurant opening on the Sunset Strip. Naturally I said yes--he had never done that before.

As we sat in the front of La Dome eating, I looked outside and a photographer was taking pictures of models. I told Ron that one model reminded me of Fiona, the girl I met a few years earlier in the UK.

As we were leaving, one of the models called my name. It was Fiona!

We became friends again and I helped her get her green card, then citizenship.

My cousin's unusual invitation put me in the right place at the right time to get us together again from half-way around the globe and to help a friend.

Well, I have to think the whole cosmos is serendipitous - and we probably recognize the tiniest fraction of those occurrences that affect us - even the cosmological ones.

For example, think of the serendipity in the fact that of the countless universes in the multiverse, we are in one of the (probably) few where the laws of physics and spacetime (the universe expanding at just the proper rate, and so many other fine-tuned parameters of quantum mechanics, quantum gravity, and other cosmological functions) that allow such things as creatures who can learn the laws of physics - and make art too! Of course that invokes the "Anthropomorphic Principle" - like: Question: "Where else could we be found? Answer: Nowhere else."

As a personal example, what string of tasks and events and "happenstance" this morning lead me to happen to login to FAA and happen to stumble across this discussion?

Fun stuff - cosmology...

Marlene, I am also one who doesn't believe in co-incidents.

My situation was similar to Mary Bedys.

My spouse has never been out of work his entire life. He's changed jobs on his own and has even been laid off due to plant closings but always managed to get another job before the actual closing date. The first of December 2013 he was permanently laid off and was unsuccessful at getting another job. We could not figure out why he was not even getting interviews until the spring. My mother, who lived 1,000 miles away from us, became ill and died. We spent two months at her house and another week there a month after coming home for several weeks. He was able to go with me and take care of a million issues that I did not have the time, energy or emotions to take care of. The timing of his unemployment was very obvious to me in hindsight.

Very good discussion. I have one thing. Once I had a dream about having a crash on my bike. I was going down the hill and in one turn there was a truck to pick up wood. I was going down as fast as I usualy do...never met anyone there. When I was going down the road for real I remebered that dream, I slowed down to the turn...and to my surprise... The truck was in the same place as in my dream. Iam surely more cautious now.

I believe that life is completely random. What we perceive as coincidences are possible every second of every minute of every day. Anything can happen at any time. Given the millions of possibilities in life, it's only natural that some events will be perceived as significant when they relate to something in our past, or to our imaginings. There's no 'guiding hand' behind it all, just a numbers game.

If Marlene wants to think that her broken ankle was to 'save' her from passing through the Akron airport, where no real threat of ebola exists, it's her choice.

I am enjoying all of the stories that are being shared.
Gee, Murray... Since you randomly showed up in my random thread, I guess that explains why you chose not to address me. Lol. I'll choose to stay tuned to national news about the very real issues in Akron since nurse # 2 spent 4 days in Akron. Our family is there.

I firmly and completely believe things are not random, Murray. I've had too many things happen that when I look back at them I know they were orchestrated by the universe for a specific purpose. You sound like my son ;-). He's not buying it either.

Mary, your son is very perceptive. :-D

My whole life is one giant serendipitous event.

Nothing is random - we are who we are - and we are put where we are at different times - always for some reason. I met my wife, now of 41 years, in circumstances that can only be traced since I left home at 18. I went to a certain city and there joined a church I'd never heard of before. I returned home, getting out of the military for several months before signing back up. In the meantime - through this church I met a man and we became best friends, I helped him and his wife build a house (carrying concrete blocks). He never spoke of having a daughter, by then grown and living in another state. A couple of years spent overseas and we kept in correspondence - still, no mention of a grown daughter (that's a long long story). Then I get a letter from a girl I'd never heard of nor seen. On return home, and going to visit my friend - there was his daughter. Long story - very short - only that trail of coincidental circumstance would we have ever met. I would never have met her father and so would never have met her.

I'm with JC on that one.

Thank you, truly, for sharing your experiences.

I don't believe in coincidences...I believe there is a reason for everything, whether or not that reason makes itself known... yep, I do agree with that. I do think many, many times the reason does not make itself known and then every once in awhile!

At a huge party in my youth, just finished swimming and was a few minutes from joining my boyfriend on the second floor deck over a patio/sliding glass doors...but first I had to go in the bathroom and put my contacts back in. Didn't hear a damn thing, but the few minutes I was in there all hell broke loose because too many people were on the deck and it collapsed inward towards the patio doors. Several people injured...but not me...and we left before the police came, also good timing :o)

Melissa,
those close call stories always make me feel like something was watching over us.....
Always makes me trust my gut instinct.

me too :o)

I totally believe in serendipity and these things happen all the time but of course I can't think of a single one right now. I recently was booked to fly back east to visit my parents but first I had to fly in a small float plane from the coast to the airport in Vancouver. The float plane took off but returned after 10 minutes or so because we were fogged in. I missed my connecting flight. I consoled myself by telling myself that I likely missed some disaster occurring if I'd made the flight. As far as I know, there was no disaster but you never know.

I was supposed to meet my sister in the Vancouver airport...she was flying in from another part of the province. But she was fogged in too.

I managed to rearrange everything and we both flew out the next day, uneventfully.

However, my float plane flight got fogged in again on the return trip. I had to take a cab to the small airport, a shuttle bus to the SkyTrain, SkyTrain to downtown Vancouver, bus to the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal, ferry to Langdale, and my husband picked me up for the hour's drive home. What a trip!

Anyway, Marlene, aside from believing in serendipity I have one superstition, and that is that things happen in threes. Your ankle injury was the last time I experienced this: first I head that a friend's mother broke her heel (fell off a ladder), then I heard about you breaking your ankle, and finally I discovered that a former roommate who I'd been out of touch with had lost his lower leg in an accident.

I'm a believer. I have had many instances of dreams that came true. I also know there are greater powers at work.. not just good dumb luck.

The threes are often noted by people... I had my three in the past 12 months....