I went to the hardware store earlier today looking for something. It wasn’t something specific — more like an idea I had for which I was looking for a solution. The solution could come from just about any department, but I’d know it when I saw it.
I didn’t see it.
But what I did see was something that sparked an idea.
Not surprisingly I’m all about “the digital”, so to speak. So it’s probably not that surprising that my thoughts regularly (some might say constantly) revolve around matters of a digital nature, even when I’m doing something completely offline and unrelated to technology.
This serves me well. Rather than putting my life into different boxes, I let them overlap. Sometimes good things happen as a result. I’m a huge fan of serendipity, and this kind of overlap is one technique to increase the chances of it happening.
Today’s revelation was simply this: I saw something that was very close to the right concept, and while there were several options all were the wrong size. But on the labels all contained a common phrase.
Ah ha! Something I can Google! Or in this case, “Amazon”.
And, indeed, a workable solution sits in my Amazon shopping cart awaiting my check out as I type.
The lesson here isn’t about Amazon, or Google, or hardware stores, or even search terms.
It’s about allowing your worlds to overlap. It’s about making room for, even inviting, coincidence and serendipity.
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PS: OK, OK, I know … “window guard”. But what I’m doing has nothing to do with windows — or Windows — or guarding. But that my solution might be a window guard wasn’t at all apparent to me until I was wandering the aisles of the hardware store, looking for nothing but ideas.
PPS: Apparently I found a blog topic there as well. 🙂