Why not go with the flow?

Synchronicity is a word I like, although I’m never quite sure what it means.
But I do know when synchronicity happens in my own life!
I still remember two amazing synchronicities I have experienced. One occurred more than 20 years ago, shortly after I began syndicating this column and I wanted to protect the name “This Side of 60.”
One evening, around 5 p.m., I was still at my desk and was very frustrated because I had no idea how to pursue getting a trademark. Suddenly the phone rang. It was Arthur, a young man I had worked with some years earlier.
“I’m just driving north of your house on the interstate so I decided to call,” said Arthur.
Then when he politely asked the usual, “How are things going?” I replied, “Terrible!” And told him about my frustration.
Whereon, Arthur informed me that his father was a trademark attorney in Kansas City. And, miraculously, my problem was solved!
To this day, even though Arthur’s father is now retired, his firm still handles my trademark.
Another unbelievable synchronicity had happened some years earlier. At the time, I had a position that required some overtime but I never went back to the office on Saturday.
However, one rare Saturday I stopped in to pick up some papers. To my horror, I found I accidentally had left a magnifying glass on my desk where the sun shone on it.
A curl of smoke alerted me that my desk was smoldering.
An hour later and my office would have been in flames! And the whole institution could have been seriously damaged.
Happenings like that are rare and somewhat unnerving. They are unexplained coincidences.
I call them synchronicities. Some people use the word serendipity. Others see it as the leading of the Lord.
Or, as our good friend Hartzel used to say when we played bridge and Mahjong together: fortuitous.
Fortuitous: happening by accident or chance; resulting in good fortune–lucky.
That’s good enough for me. Actually, that is synchronicity: the coincidental occurrence of events that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality.
Think about your own life. What unexplained coincidences have you experienced? Did you appreciate them?
Are you really open to accidental synchronicity? If not, why not?
Life is complicated and also hard, especially in the 21st century. So we need all the help that’s available. And, sometimes, that help comes in unexplainable ways.
Always remember the old saying, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”—even if the horse is unexplainable.
Don’t be tempted to doubt and check it out too closely–just accept it!
The ancient Chinese poet and philosopher, Lao Tzu, once said, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.
“Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
Sometimes we don’t understand the happenings in our lives. And sometimes we don’t like them. But they’re still there.
At times like that, just go with the flow. After all, they may be just fortunate synchronicities in disguise!
Marie Snider is an award-winning health writer and syndicated columnist. Write her at thisside60@cox.net