Search Mediators Near You:

Serendipity

It’s Thanksgiving week, and this year I am thankful for serendipity, something I hadn’t noticed much before, but which played an interesting role in this year’s events.
 
It was pure serendipity that a small group of people came together and became one of the most effective teams I’ve had the privilege of working with – the members of my board of directors on the Foundation I chair. People knew someone who knew someone who made an introduction. People I met because I was on too many committees and burning out, but found these great people who were actually enthusiastic about the same issues that interest me. People who had ideas and simply ran with them, doing work I never expected and were incredibly successful at it. I am certainly thankful for their work and commitment, and for the serendipity that brought us together.
 
It was also serendipity that led me to a group of people who made it possible to create a nine-minute documentary on middle school peer mediators. I heard about a program I wanted to build on; people ran interference for me that I didn’t even know about to get permission to interview the students; and then an article in an online journal I never read – except for that one serendipitous day – identified the students who would ultimately produce the program. Pure serendipity! Here’s the link. These kids are wonderful, both the mediators and the technical crew.
 
 Pepperdine Peer Mediation Interviews
 
There are also losses that I am feeling especially hard this year because the family home that we moved into from a teeny little Bronx apartment when I was nine has been sold, and for the first time in many years, a new family will spend their first Christmas in it, moving from a little apartment in Brooklyn. It is serendipity that the house was available when they needed it, and we were ready to let go of it as well, but a loss nonetheless.
 
Think about what was pure chance or luck or, yes, even serendipity, that made something wonderful happen this year, and then think about what changes led you to that moment, to that instant when you could recognize that good luck and the events it triggered. And be thankful for them. After all, it’s Thanksgiving.

Have an absolutely wonderful and peaceful week.

                        author

Maria Simpson

Maria Simpson, Ph.D. is an executive coach, consultant, trainer and mediator who has worked extensively with the corporate, non-profit and conflict resolution communities to promote incorporating conflict resolution into organizational systems and training people in the skills and approaches of mediation. MORE >

Featured Mediators

ad
View all

Read these next

Category

The Value of a Human Life

One case haunts me still, from the days when I was practicing law. The clients were parents left bereft by a tragedy that no mother or father should ever have...

By Diane J. Levin
Category

Eviction Mediation Updates, December 2021

Just Court ADR by Susan M. Yates, Jennifer Shack, Heather Scheiwe Kulp, and Jessica Glowinski.This article is part of a series of perspectives on eviction mediation program development that is being supported...

By Eric Slepak
Category

Robert Creo and Doug Noll Fix Conflict on Talk Radio

O.K., I never listen to Talk Radio because it's all about conflict and I get enough conflict in my day job. Here's a relief, some talk radio exists to FIX...

By Victoria Pynchon

Find a Mediator

X
X
X