Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Friday, July 09, 2010
The Nature of Fortune
This isn’t an article about luck as such, but it’s writing
was triggered by a piece of good fortune, the source of which I’m beginning to
question. That questioning is the basis of my post.
I made a reasonably significant purchase on a website
recently. Being the conscientious souls that they are, the website sent me a
confirmation e-mail listing what I had ordered, how much it cost, and delivery
and billing information. It’s a fairly standard procedure these days. In fact,
it’s so standard that, as a matter of course, I barely glance at the e-mails
these days.
On this occasion, however, and for reasons I’m still a
little unsure of, I decided to thoroughly check the details of the order. Having
done so, I realised that, in my hurry to get the process finished, I had
wrongly specified the delivery address. As it happens, no harm was done, and
the details were amended with a quick reply to the e-mail.
But what was it that made me check the details when normally
I wouldn’t? It certainly wasn’t that I didn’t trust the company in question to
get it right. It wasn’t that my attitudes have changed – I’ll probably move the
next e-mail of it’s kind straight to the relevant folder with nothing more than
a cursory glance of its contents. So, what was it?
I have a theory on this. I think it’s quite feasible that subconsciously,
over the course of my night’s sleep, I realised that something, somewhere was
wrong with what I’d done during the course of the evening. That triggered me to
re-examine the products of that evening’s tasks, including the response to the
online purchase. I scanned this e-mail not because I wanted to confirm that I
had done things correctly, but rather because I was expecting to find something
wrong.
How often do we attribute fortunate coincidences to sheer
luck, when actually it’s our subconscious helping us out?
Just a theory…
Friday, July 02, 2010
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