Have You Ever Had A Serendipity?

Has something ever come into your life that you did not expect at all and that, in one way or another, has been a lucky discovery for you? It is said that this is serendipitous, because it arrives without warning and by chance but it has all the power that is needed to at least capture our attention.

Taking this into account, you might think that serendipity is a nicer way of calling “random”, however they are two different types of causes. The first appears when we guide our steps towards one or another destination or when we are prepared to find something in it that we are not yet aware of and that will be positive. The effects of chance, on the other hand, can also be negative and act the same, whether or not we are prepared for its consequences.

The origin of the word serendipity

The term Serendipity (from the Arabic  sarandib or  serendib ) comes from an oriental tale entitled  The three princes of Serendipi, a  Persian name for the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). We owe the transmission of the concept to a certain extent to Horace Walpole, who adapted it to English in 1754.

The tale is rather a short story, in which three princes with great reasoning power are sent by their father to discover new lands. During that trip they are denounced as thieves by a man who had lost his camel, understanding that only someone with the information that the princes are revealing could have stolen it.

At the end of the story, serendipity or chance saves them: the camel appears, proving that it was not a robbery and the three princes have the opportunity to explain themselves. We leave you the story here, since we think that it is very worth approaching it.

Some serendipities for our common world

So far we have been able to get an idea that serendipity is what Royston M. Roberts defined as the “discovery that is made thanks to a combination of accident and sagacity”, but it is much more interesting to see the practice of what we have been commenting on. Take a look at the following examples of things that we all know and that we discovered thanks to a serendipity:

• : Scottish A. Fleming discovered penicillin through a mishap in his laboratory while researching the flu. Many of his cultures had become contaminated, and when he showed one of his work plates to a friend, he realized something had killed the staphylococcus bacteria.

• Although it does not have the importance of penicillin, we cannot deny the usefulness of the sticky notes that emerged when its inventor, Spencer Silver, wanted to get a very strong glue for his aerospace industry. In 1968, beyond getting it, what I think was a weak glue that left no residue and soon became a good alternative to thumbtacks.

• in 1953 chef George Crum was serendipitous when trying to annoy a customer of his who usually complained about the thickness of his potatoes. What happened is that he decided to cut them finer and let them crunch but he found a totally different result than he expected and that we all know: the customer loved it and today it is one of the favorite garnishes of many people.

• Who would have thought that viagra had come up while someone was examining a medicine against angina pectoris? As it was, the product was launched on the market to treat erectile dysfunction when it was observed that in clinical trials they only had a slight effect on angina.

The reason for the attraction to serendipity

The truth is that I have heard this word so many times in recent years that I could not not talk about it, because it is also very topical: it is a concept that has been welcomed in a loving and pleasant way, especially among the youngest, and It has been used for films with the same name, for books such as David Sadness’s poetry, for tattoos or even for some other musical lyrics.

Serendipity awakens so much attraction precisely because it appears charged with positive energy and it is as if some magic appears in our lives to stay forever. It’s like a kind of halo of happiness at an opportune moment that was there solely for you: I didn’t believe in serendipity until I got caught up in one. Since then, I pay attention to those around me and look for the essence of what they want to convey to me.