SERENDIPITY

Many years ago I attended a seminar that had to do with recognizing personality traits unique to each individual and learning to use them to the best advantage.   So much of the discussion of those two days has stuck with me and proved useful in understanding the human dynamics of so many situations. 

I wish I had saved the course literature to refer back to but suffice it to say that we covered an in-depth look at the kinds of personality differences humans have and how we need them all: leaders, followers, speakers, listeners, dreamers, doers, observers, modifiers.

The whole experience was very interesting, but with me being a typical human what stands out in my memory the clearest after all these years is what I learned about me.  There were people there who were natural born leaders.  There were master negotiators.  There were people who excelled at efficiency and others who felt most comfortable as simple ‘worker bees’.  My super power seemed to be that I always saw the big picture.  In a room of maybe fifty of us I was one of only two people whose perspective was from farther back than everyone else’s. 

Up until that point in my life I had looked upon this as a personality flaw.  While other people can see life issues in black and white, my perspective always seemed to be from back far enough all I saw were shades of grey.  I was cursed to see both sides of any argument and know that seldom was neither of them was completely right.  Just ask my eldest son who spent his youth railing at this defect of mine only to realize in adulthood that he is similarly afflicted.

A much shorter way to explain this would have been to remind Sesame Street watchers of 30 years ago about a song they sang - “where you put your eyes”.  Given just a tail, an ear, a foot, and a trunk no one could figure out what was in front of them until they moved way back and saw it was an elephant.  I always see the whole elephant.

Yesterday’s elephant was serendipity. 

It’s one of my favorite words: serendipity, when good things just fall into place through no planning what-so-ever.

I happened to be in a neighboring town yesterday.  It’s not that I wanted to be there, there was just no way around it.  My brand new car had an engineering defect and had to have warranty work done so I got to spend an entire afternoon killing time there when I would much rather have been at home doing yard work.  The appointment had been made weeks in advance and I had only randomly picked yesterday because a previous appointment for that afternoon had been moved to another day.

I was told when I dropped the car off that I probably had 4 hours to kill.  I had nothing to shop for but I very slowly strolled through all the stores they had to offer.  After what I felt had been a very long time I checked my phone and discovered I still had 2 ½ to go.  A short debate took place in my head: I had two choices – a very long walk to Timmie’s for a calorie free coffee or a slightly shorter walk to DQ for a much less healthy choice of treat.  The ice cream won.

As I approached the building I noticed a woman just seating herself in the front sunroom part of the restaurant and thought to myself that looked like a nice place to sit.  So, after buying my oreo blizzard I made my way there too.  Although I hadn’t planned to sit with her I was happy to accept her invitation – the time would go by much faster with conversation.

And what a conversation it was.  I suppose that given our similar ages and rural life experiences it only stood to reason we would have a lot in common, but it went much deeper than that.  We began with telling each other of our families but the subject matter led to much more personal and poignant revelations, not the usual topics that one would discuss with strangers but were setbacks and crises we had both experienced.  Our time together was a good thing.

Serendipity.  My car appointment could have been any day, but it was yesterday.  Her income tax appointment could have been any day, but it was yesterday.  I could have shopped longer, or decided that coffee was better for me than ice cream.  Would I have chosen the sunroom if I hadn’t seen her sitting down as I walked up?

People whose view of the world is close up would likely call it a coincidence that we were at the same place at the same time. 

My perspective is from farther back; so many unrelated things had to fall into place for that conversation to take place it can only be called Serendipity.