Coincidences

If you notice two streets cross each other, like 9th Street and Main Street, the intersection is called 9th and Main.

If you notice two things happen at the same time, this is called “two things happening at the same time”.

Add a place that you wish you could work at the corner of 9th and Main and you may coincidentally be more alert to what happens when you drive by that intersection. You may even notice two things happening at the same time and tell a story, whether consciously or unconsciously, that brings significance to that moment.

When we add meaning to the intersection of two incidents, the moment graduates to a coincidence.

And we are meaning making machines.

20,000 years ago, if you heard a twig snap, there was a legitimate possibility that you or someone you loved was about to be mauled by megafauna. The human nervous system, realizing that sometimes people die after the sound of a twig snapping, recorded a story that twig snapping threatens the proliferation of our species.

Thanks to this “upgrade”, humans began to include, as a default setting, a fight-or-flight response triggered by the sound of a snapping twig. This was pretty good for a while…

However, realize that harmless twig-snappings happen every day too. The twig snap followed by a life-threatening emergency is a coincidence, and although the story our ancestors told about it should get the lion’s share of the credit for our existence today, the story didn’t exist without the storytellers themselves. The twig snap and the attacking beast wasn’t inherently a coincidence. The person who saw the two things happen at the same time and wanted to keep her tribe alive made it a coincidence.

She had a vision and gave meaning to the world that supported it.

The witness of a coincidence is its creator.

It’s you who guides your path toward the vision your subconscious has already decided is the best trajectory to get your needs met.

It’s you, with a little help from your ancestors, that is responsible for deciding when to pay attention and what to pay attention to. An infinite amount of incidences occur simultaneously all day every day and we don’t call them coincidences.

When you notice a coincidence, it’s because you are on a path. The connection between incidences in your life is a story you are creating that supports your vision. Some call it instinct. Some call it attraction. Some call it cause-and-effect. Regardless of the mechanism, realize that megafauna went extinct 12,000 years ago but the nervous system still tells the story (of the coincidence) of the snapping twig and imminent doom. And today, snapping twigs sound very different. They sound like speaking in front of people, failing at something you care about, and leaving a job you dislike. It’s leaping into your passion without a guaranteed place to land. It’s moving to another country to study a new language. Its asking the person you like on a date.

It’s all the things that could mean something scary comes next.

You are the author of the story.

When you hear the snapping of twigs in your life, you have the choice to curl into fetal position and give up, run away from the unknown, or calmy walk over and look at what snapped the twig.

You may find out that it was a bus that drove over the twig.

A bus full of people you were destined to meet.

On it’s way to your dream destination with room for one.

Wouldn’t that be a coincidence?