Serendipity

There is a word in our language, an unusual word coined by Walpole. The word is serendipity—which means essentially: something unexpected that you find along the way when you are looking for something else. Many of the world’s discoveries and much of the world’s progress have been brought about through avenues that have been opened when someone was seeking to discover something else—by facts that have that have been found when someone was looking for other facts.

Columbus is one of the great historic examples. Countless such accounts could be given, not confined to the discovery of continents and geographic areas, but in all of the sciences, in all of the professions, in farming, mechanics and manufacturing methods—and in finding friends, in personal things, and even in spiritual experiences.

There are innumerable things that men have discovered, that men have developed, including talents and resources and abilities, because they have kept working and moving, and searching and seeking when they could scarcely see the first step—and certainly couldn’t see the ultimate end.

There are by-products in every process. One thing leads to another. One step suggests the second. And the fact that we can’t see through the last door need not prevent our opening the first door in any constructive search.

To few men has it been given to see very far into the future, but to make the most of life a man must keep moving and working and searching and seeking for understanding. “…seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

If we are not in search of something, we are less likely to find anything. If we are not working at something, we are less likely to make anything. If we don’t keep moving, we are less likely to arrive anywhere.

We have to make the decisions of each day to the best of our ability and face the future with faith. And if we keep trying, if we keep moving, we often find rewarding things that we little expect—things which we never would have found in idleness or inactivity or indecision.