serendipity
I recently finished a book by Richard Eyre – The Happiness Paradox. Don’t want to go into too much detail but there is a part about serendipity as an alternative to control (ie. control everything in your life to be happy that is).
Serendipity is often defined as fate or luck or something good happening to you by pure luck. It is a bit more than that.
Serendipity does not come from Latin or Greek, but rather was created by nineteenth-century author Horace Walpole after having read the ancient fable called the 3 princesses of Serendip (now Sri Lanka!)
In the fable the 3 princesses search for fortune but through their awareness and perception they discover love, truth and opportunities to help others and realise they got more than they intitally were looking for.
Walpole realised there was no word in the English language that expresses that happy ability to find things that are better than what we were looking for – so he made up the word serendipity.
So it’s not just luck but the fact that you are exploring that will lead you to something much better 🙂