When Things Come Once You Stop Looking
It wraps you up in its warm arms when you turn the corner or pops up in your email one day… Just when you had stopped looking, destiny gives you an unexpected gift.
The world is unpredictable and occasionally chaotic. It feels like a maze with no exit. And actually, there are a lot more of these magic moments than we realize.
Some connect these occurrences to the very attractive “science” of luck. But real experts on the subject know the truth about these “random” occurrences. When our dreams become reality, the magic wand of opportunity touches us. Behind these moments there’s a bit of science and a lot of psychology…
One example is found in one very interesting book. In “The Medici Effect,” Frans Johansson explains how sometimes it’s not enough to be a total expert in a field to have success.
In fact, dedicating all our effort, time, and energy to one objective doesn’t 100% guarantee we’ll achieve it. Occasionally, we have to step away for a bit.
We have to get other perspectives and think in a less linear, more creative way. One that’s flexible, patient, and original.
And there’s something equally as important that we can’t forget. Sometimes, the most unexpected actions are guided by our subconscious.
When we give our conscious, rigid, sometimes obsessive, and always analytical mind a certain amount of distance, our sixth sense wakes up and, whether we believe it or not, it’s never wrong.
Take a minute and think about it.
Even if you’ve stopped looking, your brain is still receptive
Andrea has a small business that isn’t going well at all. She knows her pastry shop isn’t profiting, and she’ll have to close it in a few months. She’s spent several weeks trying to think of what to do.
So between the pressure, anxiety, and sadness about closing her family business, all of a sudden tears start falling down her face. She’s exhausted.
But, the very next morning she got up much with a clear peace. She said this to herself: “it’s settled, what has to happen will happen and I’ll face whatever comes.”
She took a shower feeling a pleasant calmness and the right kind of mental peace. While she showered, she got a notification on her phone from one of her social media networks.
When she picked up the phone, Andrea had a burst of inspiration. She’ll take her business online, put her shop on social media, and make special pastries and desserts for parties and events.
This is a simple example of how our brain works when we stop pressuring it. We see how it becomes even more receptive when we move it out of the the fog of fear.
We’ve been exploring these magic moments, but stumbled across another fascinating area: intersectional thought.
Intersectional thought
As people, we have a certain habit in common. It’s trying to predict everything that might happen if we do or don’t do certain things.
We create spreadsheets in our mind. We add columns, analyze facts, correlate variables, and make exhaustive, sometimes fatalistic predictions.
Instead of using our very linear and analytic left hemisphere of our brain, it’ll be much more useful for us to apply intersectional thought. It’s characterized by the following capabilities:
- Being able to make connections between information and stimuli that have nothing to do with each other.
- A person capable of intersectional thought is able to find calm in the middle of chaos.
- In the middle of this balance and peace, a person using intersectional thought is able to connect with everything around them because they are open, receptive and curious. Because they like “playing” with all the information they take in, testing, tossing out, inventing, and transforming…
Also, this kind of person won’t obsess over looking for one single solution to their problems. Most of the time they’ll let themselves be carried by their environment. And they’ll accept the unexpected, the accidental…
Luck is really knowing how to see opportunities
To be lucky in life, sometimes the right circumstances have to be there. But, for these circumstances to appear in front of us, our brain has to decide to know how to recognize opportunity where other people might just see a closed door.
We want to be clear about one thing, though. Luck has nothing to do with magic. Coincidences exist but a lot of the time they’re “coincidences” brought on by that exceptional and wonderful organ: the brain.
It’s one we should trust a lot more. Only once we free our mind of anxiety, limiting attitudes, fear, and obsessions, will our entire brain expand and transform. It will start to function at 100%.
This will let us be receptive. And this gives us the opportunity to listen to the internal, wise voice that often leads to true opportunities.
Images courtesy of Ben Giles