The Serendipity of Strangers: How Chance Encounters Shaped My Life
Everyone wants to feel in charge of their life. It’s aggravating when things happen to you that feel completely out of your own control. But what about when things out of your control improve your life for the better?
I’ve found that for myself, almost every pivotal moment in my life can be traced to a genuinely good person that I crossed paths with.
A few examples :
I had always wanted to learn coding. I had started visual programming in 7th grade, but it wasn’t real coding. I didn’t believe I had it in me to learn coding. I was too young and not smart enough, I thought. In 10th grade I met an 11th grader, John. He had part-time high-paying jobs doing coding. He became my idol. We didn’t talk too much after our initial encounter, but his life left a mark on me. Instantly I knew if he could do it, so could I. A year later I was also talking jobs doing iOS development (real coding).
I had just moved going into my sophomore year, and another very influential person for me was a fellow student, Chandler, in my history class. He noticed me sitting alone during lunch and he would frequently come sit next to me just to keep me company, or he would ask if I wanted to join his friends. I was far too socially anxious at the time, or else I think we would’ve become good friends, although we certainly did become friendly acquaintances. I always appreciated how he took time out of his life, and had the maturity in high school to recognize and care about a stranger. The last time I saw him was when I moved, and I thanked him for his efforts.
In the midst of a long bout of depression, I decided to start learning Chinese. I started chatting with people on a language learning app. I met a Chinese girl, Kailu, about my age. We would chat everyday, she practicing her English, and me attempting Chinese. She became a friend to me in a way that I had not had before, both because she was a girl and also because she seemed to genuinely care for me, as did I for her. Years later and we still message each other every 6 months or so. She taught me that I could be loved, which I desperately needed to feel at that time in me life, in my depressed state.
There are at least 2-3 other more recent examples in the last year or so but I feel they are still a bit too fresh and I would not want to embarrass friends.
Back to my point about people entering and changing our lives. This idea scares me.
Seemingly chance encounters can change your life so much. Other people can change your life so much for the better. My life would not have changed were it not for these people. And yet it felt almost as if by pure chance that I came across them.
For the longest time I felt that if I would just work hard enough then all my dreams would come true. I could be successful in my own right purely from my own actions. I now realize that’s not true. I can try as hard as I want in my life working and grinding for the things I want, but the key moments come down to other people’s affect on my life. There is something deeply human about that I think. That pivotal moments are not a result of your own work, but rather the intertwining of your’s and another’s life.
The right people for me introduced a spark of themselves in my life. Like a bit of their paint was brushed onto me.
While it often feels like random happenstance, I think looking back I can see how decisions I took put me in the path of these people. It was always a result of putting myself out there.
I met John because I joined an after school engineering club. I met Kailu because I joined the language learning app. I met Chandler because despite being quiet in the rest of my life, I was always an active participant in history class, and I think he noticed me from that. I have met more amazing people both in my time in San Francisco and now as I stay in Japan, as a result of some planning and some spontaneity.
How do I live differently with this knowledge?
I try to increase the surface area of my life for meeting new people and having new experiences. This means that instead of immediately saying no to opportunities that sound uncomfortable or new, I say yes more frequently. I have recognized that becoming a better version of myself doesn’t always look like hardcore grinding in my life. Sometimes, in fact more often than not, I think improving one’s life is about having fun and having new experiences. This is where pivotal moments happen.
I realized life is supposed to be fun. Life is supposed to be interesting. It’s not supposed to be hard all the time. If life gets too hard for too long it makes me realize I am doing something wrong.