Embracing serendipity

On a Thursday night I received a text message from Claudia who was in Belgrade. It read:

'Honey, I gave your number to a guy. He is Filo and staying in Amdam for 10 hours. Give him a map and a bike and send him on his way. Yes I am drunk. Xx'             

I didn't think much of the message when I received it. Mainly because I was asleep. So when I woke to it, I was both amused and confused. Just how much help was this random Filipino guy expecting? Did he want me to show him around Amsterdam all day? What if he was a weirdo that never broke eye contact when speaking to you? Or one of those guys who constantly uses your name in conversation?

"Well that's a great story Cassey, do you want another drink Cassey? Tell me another hilarious joke, Cassey! Good grief you're a hoot Cassey!"

Oh God. 

What had Claudia gotten me into?

But as it turns out, he was a genuinely lovely guy. I picked him up from the train station, we chatted pleasantly - I told him my life story in 140 characters or less. He told me his. Then he dropped his bag off at our house, I gave him a map and our spare bike and he was on his way. 

In the afternoon when he had to leave for the airport, he shouted me a coffee, gave me his business card and thanked me profusely for my hospitality.

Hospitality?

What hospitality? 

I just gave him a map and a bike and pointed him in the general direction to the pretty canals. 

But then I thought about it. 

Claudia didn't need to offer him any help. She didn't need to tell him to get in contact with me. She could have just nodded and smiled, made the general chitchat about how he'll have a great time in Amsterdam. And he absolutely would have. But Claudia wasn't just offering him help. She was offering him a connection. 

And in doing this, she had widened her opportunity to connect.

And that's how we should operate. Showing simple kindnesses to strangers that somehow, somewhere in the universe, manifest themselves into something bigger and more wonderful. 

It's kind of sad that in our current times, we're taught that it's safer to be distrustful and cynical and that it's bad to be open. We sit on trains and never make eye contact with our fellow passengers. We'll go to packed bars with our friends and act affronted when someone we don't know tries to start a conversation. When did it become so au fait to never connect? 

Imagine how many cool things could happen if you could just widen your opportunity to connect? And it doesn't have to be completely serendipitous.  Maybe instead of deleting all those random numbers in your phone (you know, those numbers) call one of them and see what happens. Write a postcard to a relative you haven't spoken to in years. See someone doing something interesting on the street? Why not ask them about it? A few days ago I rode past an older gentleman who was so consumed in solving his Rubix cube that he didn't even notice I was slowing down to stare at him. If I wasn't so shy, I would have stopped and asked him how he planned on solving it (I would have thrown it into the canal after the first five minutes!). Maybe he would have told me to go away, but I'm pretty sure we would have struck up a conversation. And even if nothing came out of it, even if it only lasted a minute, he would have made my day, and maybe I would have made his.

I really think that it's the little moments of random connections that nourishes the human spirit. So why don't we stop assuming that everyone is out to maim us and steal our wallets and start smiling at strangers once in a while. Most people will think you're crazy, but hey, that's nothing you're not used to, right?

Yours in creating serendipity. And the cat section of Youtube.

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