Have You Ever Experienced A Moment Of Serendipity?

Has something ever happened in your life that you absolutely did not expect and that somehow allowed you to discover something?

This phenomenon is called serendipity, it is the discovery of something totally unexpected, which comes to capture our attention at a time when we are focused on something else.

You might quickly think that serendipity is a way of scientifically qualifying chance, but they are two different things.

The first occurs when we take a step towards our destiny and are prepared to find something positive, even though we are not aware of it.

The effects of chance can be negative, whether or not we are prepared for it to face the consequences.

The origin of the word serendipity

The word serendipity (from the Arabic sarandib or serendib ) comes from an eastern account called The Three Princes of Serendip , the Persian name for the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

The transmission of the concept is to the credit of Horace Walopole, who adapted the work into English in 1754.

The tale is a short story in which three princes, all endowed with great powers of reasoning, are sent by their father to discover new lands.

During this trip, they are accused of being thieves by a man who lost a camel.

Having learned that the three princes are foreigners, he does not hesitate for a single second to make them responsible for this theft.

At the end of the story, serendipity (or fortuity) saves them: the camel reappears, thus demonstrating that it has not been stolen and the three princes therefore have the opportunity to explain themselves.

You can read the full story here, and we highly recommend that you do so to soak up all the beauty of this tale.

Some serendipities from our real world

So far, we can perceive serendipity as Royston M. Roberts defines it to us : “ The discovery that comes about through a combination of accident and sagacity ”.

But we will see in the rest of this article what are the consequences of this practice that we have just defined for you.

Read the following few examples of things we all know that were discovered through the phenomenon of serendipity.

• Penicillin: Scottish A. Fleming discovered penicillin because of a setback in his lab, even while he was studying influenza.
  Most of his cultures were contaminated, and upon presenting one of his Petri dishes to a friend, he realized that something had killed the staph bacteria.
• Post-its: even if they obviously do not have the same importance as penicillin, we cannot deny the usefulness of these sticky notes which were created when their inventor, Spencer Silver, wanted to make a glue extremely strong for the aerospace industry.
  In 1968, instead of achieving this, he created a lightweight glue that left no residue and offered an excellent alternative to conventional tacks.

• Crisps: In 1953, cook George Crum tried to provoke one of his customers, who always complained about the size of the potatoes he served in his restaurant.
  He decided to cut them as finely as possible and make them crisp, but the result of his little revenge was different from what he thought. The customer loved this way of preparing the potatoes and today crisps are still popular.
• Viagra: who would have thought that viagra was going to pop up when a scientist was looking for a cure for angina pectoris? The product was then launched to treat erectile dysfunction, while it has little effect on the symptoms of angina.

The explanation of serendipity

We have heard so much about this concept in recent years that it was impossible for us not to make an article of it.

It has inspired many people, especially younger people, who made it into movies, books, poetry (like David Sadness), popular tattoos, etc.

Serendipity attracts so much attention because it is precisely charged with positive energy and has that little magical side, which can transform our lives forever. 

It’s like a kind of happiness that arises at the right moment, as if it was directly aimed at us: sometimes it is difficult to believe in it until it has happened to us.

But when that happens, we become more attentive to the little details around us and we search for the essence of what they can convey to us.