It was psychologist Carl Jung who first coined the phrase synchronicity. Simplistically stated, it means the coincidental occurrence of simultaneous events (sort of and well, mostly).
I won’t give the psychological definition of synchronicity as your eyes would glaze over. But you can head to the internet if your desire for information exceeds this column.
I have had several situations where synchronicity occurred recently.
It’s kind of cool when something synchronous happens. A few weeks ago as I was crossing 35th Street, near my office, and was in the middle of the intersection, my former landlady drove up in front of me, rolled down her window and with dramatic flare, handed me mail that had been sent to my old address. She had been on her way to my office. We could not have planned it any better if we had synchronized our watches.
Shortly after that, my office desk chair broke and almost, (but not quite), dumped me on the floor. As I was taking it outside to roll it down to the big dumpster (because my family consists of me and a 97-year-old and the ability to fix was not genetically marked), another person from a nearby office who happened to be walking by, told me about a retired someone who fixes office equipment.
Eureka!
So, I phoned, he came, he took the chair, he fixed the chair (in an hour and a half) and charged me a pittance. The word service doesn’t even begin to describe what this person did. It was so old-fashioned and fabulously wonderful it rendered me speechless which is a rare happening in my life.
So the synchronous moment was rolling the broken chair outside exactly at the moment another office worker was strolling past, ironically to indulge in a cigarette. How ironic – synchronicity and irony all at the same time. Irony, you may ask? One of my roles is to help people to quit smoking.
Then of course there are the times that I am heading to the phone to dial a friend, only to have the phone ring and after pressing “flash”, have that friend say “Hey Carole.” I usually respond with, “ Wow, you just read my mind!” Our energy met halfway via the phone lines.
When things occur in a synchronistic manner, it could be said to be serendipitous. Both the mail delivery and the chair repair were definitely serendipitous.
Then of course there are the many times I’ve been thinking about purchasing something or looking for something specific for either my office or home and the item just seems to appear in the most unexpected places.
It is quite delightful when all the forces of a moment join together and provide a wonderfully serendipitous and synchronistic event. It kind of makes my day in a goose-bumpy way.
Carole Fawcett is a retired counsellor, clinical hypnotherapist and freelance writer. www.wordaffair.com