Even more about serendipity

Serendipity - it is all around us if we allow it to happen, if we are alive to opportunity, if we listen and observe with a lively and fertile mind, if we do more, in other words, than just lie back and let things float over us.

Or is it? Do we create our own serendipity? Are some people luckier than others? Do we make our own luck or bad luck? Can we significantly alter our destiny by our attitude to life? We certainly cannot have any control over the family and life circumstances into which we are born. And clearly some people have truly awful childhoods and many are born into abject poverty, violence and worse. But what about afterwards, in our subsequent journey through life?

I have written about Serendipity before - A seeming gift for finding good things accidentally - a word coined by Horace Walpole after the Persian tale of the Three Princes of Serendip. It is a subject that really fascinates me.

I think that for me it manifests itself from what I read, and in talking and listening to as many people as possible within my areas of interest, with the help of a fertile imagination. This I guess is what networking is really all about. And it can be very exciting. But energy and opportunity are both essential. And we can consciously create both.

People will often say - oh you are lucky - when I know I created at least a part of the so called "luck." What do readers think? I am collecting stories on serendipitous experiences for analysis. Please can you help me with these thought processes?

Images copyright Eleanor Stoneham 2010