One Life, Enjoy Your Path

Some might call it serendipity. Other’s might call it cause and effect. But isn’t wonderful how one choice, one decision can ripple through your entire life?

About fifty years ago I decided on a whim, to judge at the California State High School Speech Tournament finals. I had been involved in speech and debate in both high school and college and I thought it might be fun.

As one of the three judges for the final round of oratory, I helped select the winner. But then, I made another choice. I wrote the winner a check so he could afford to attend to the national finals in Washington, D. C.

Word of monetary gifts travel fast. Two months later his friend Jim showed up in my office. He was finishing his great novel, and needed money to live on, so I hired him to be a “secret shopper” for our apartment buildings in the San Fernando Valley. (I learned that more than one of our apartment managers wore their hair in curlers on Sunday morning).

But the point of this story (which I’ve shared before) is that my one decision, to judge a speech contest, led to chain of events that has drastically impacted my life for the better.  Jim in turn, introduced me to rare book collecting. It was through rare book collecting that I first saw Daveen, who was working at Heritage Book Shop on La Cienega.

And through Daveen I met … well, three of my daughters, for one thing.

Once choice. A lifetime of happy consequences. Each day in our lives we follow along a path, making many decisions. Inevitably, those decisions impact our lives in unforeseeable ways. If I take the path that forks off the one I’m on, that could change everything. The folks we meet in our journey might be a random lot. But if we have the sagacity to notice these chance meetings as opportunities, we can have a hand in creating our own good fortune. Our task is not to find the best possible partner or friends, but to recognize them when, through happy accident, we meet along the path.

The life I have today is as good as it gets. And I can thank a few well-made choices, and a few happy accidents for that.

So, share your joy. I wish you many happy accidents.

Alan