The Magic of Serendipity
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” John Lennon presciently (預知地) wrote in his song “Beautiful Boy” on his final album, and it is found to be quite accurate. Fortunately, the unexpected can also work out favorably, sometimes taking us in an entirely new and happier direction. Serendipity is defined to be the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. In other words, the idea of serendipity allows us to think that there is always a grand design to life for a reason. In fact, life does happen to us while we’re making other plans. Accidentally, we might place more value on the role of serendipity in shaping our future. It may be just the statistics or odds of chance, but, curiously, we can’t help but think that serendipity is magical, a mystical force that occasionally makes its presence known. Rather than spend so much time and energy trying to engineer what lies ahead, we may be better off just opening ourselves up to the possibilities of tomorrow.
A postcard. A first-time visit to the new restaurant. A flower on the sidewalk. A last-minute decision about where to travel. These are only little things with little in common. But they all have a role in starting something good in a small way, such as happy accidents, coincidences, luck and randomness. However, serendipity isn’t just about something lucky or good happening to us. We have to do something about it, too. When something good happens in such a random way, we don’t know. We can’t quite figure it out. That’s the beauty of serendipity. Nevertheless, in our minds, we do have the subconscious or unconscious anticipations.
Magic is like the wind in spring. It’s all around us, but normally we can’t see it. That means that, sometimes, life gets overwhelming and the magic seems to disappear. In those moments, it’s as if the shine goes out of life. In this sense, we just need to remind ourselves how to recognize magic once more. Maybe, there are still small possibilities of magic continuing to happen all around us. Then, all we have to do is to remember how to recognize them. In our daily lives, we all want some magic to transform our lives into something better. Someone wants magic for getting a job for which he/she has been struggling long. Someone looks for magic to get past the illness that has been troubling him/her for so long. And there are people who only want magic to be happy and free of depression no matter what life unfolds for them. Living a magical life with a perfect job, health, relationships, money is what everyone seeks. Notwithstanding, how can we meet the magic of serendipity? Perhaps, we require having an outside force or the motivation source to do it for us.
In today’s society, it is more important than ever to focus on our futures. With so much complexity and change in the world, we should prepare for everything. We must explore the unknowns and discuss them at all levels in our brains. We’re constantly surrounded by a multitude of unknown variables, like climate change and inequality. In the past, we have merely viewed futures as things that can be solved with business plans or the government’s decision-making. But this isn’t enough anymore. To meet the challenges of tomorrow, we ought to anticipate and prepare for the unknowns. This means that we require a mindset shift towards embracing uncertainty instead of trying to eliminate it. That is to say, we can’t simply ask futures into existence. It’s something that we have to work towards. For example, if we want specific kinds of futures, we must become more inclusive and allow for different types of people to have a say in what futures looks like through experimental planning. This way, we’re building the skills to adapt well in an age full of radical change and uncertainty. We have to create structures that are flexible enough to adapt quickly to new circumstances. We also require a proactive (主動的) mindset so that we are more likely to take risks and experiment with solutions. We don’t know the wonders of magic and serendipity. But if we build the adaptive capabilities to navigate the upcoming radical uncertainty, we will, definitely, be lucky enough to encounter beautiful things in our lives.

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