Synchronicity: Random Coincidences … or Not?

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What is synchronicity?

To quote Carl Jung (a Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher born in 1875):  “Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer”.

Putting it in a simpler way, synchronicity is meaningful coincidences from seemingly random events that come together, that cannot be explained by either logic or science.

Is that as clear as mud?  lol

Seriously though, have you heard of it before?

Most likely you’ve experienced it but perhaps you didn’t know that there was a name for it.

Maybe you believe that these experiences are simply random coincidences.

Regardless of what you or I believe, there is no doubt that coincidences (or synchronicity) do happen, and they happen to everyone at some point in their lives.

How many times can you recall a series of events happening in your life, a seemingly random series of events, only to find yourself thinking later on, “Wow!  What a freaky coincidence!”.

It happens to me on a very regular basis, actually, and I firmly believe that like anything else that you become consciously aware of, the more you notice it, the more it seems to happen … but that’s for another post. 

Some common examples of what I’m talking about here are:

* Someone you haven’t seen or heard from for a while just “pops into your head”.  Then the next time you are doing your shopping, for example, you see them face to face!

* You decide to ring someone only their phone is engaged.  Later on you discover that you were ringing them at the exact time that they were ringing you! (my sister and I do this quite often!).

Speaking of phone incidents, I just have to tell you this funny (and relevant) story that happened about 6 weeks ago:

I was on the phone talking to my sister, when we heard the beeping sound of someone else trying to call her.  She said, “I’d better get that.  I’ll ring you back in a minute”. So we said goodbye and hung up.

I was going to ring Mum soon anyway, so I thought I’d ring her while I was waiting for my sister.  So I rang Mum only to find that she was the one who had been calling my sister!  They’d only spoken for a moment though because someone was trying to call Mum (it was me!).

Mum said that she’d ring my sister back shortly after she’d talked to me, then only a moment later, MY phone was beeping at me so I told Mum that I’d better get it (because I was actually waiting on another call other than from my sister) and that I’d ring her back …

… and you’ve guessed what happened next, haven’t you? …

As it happened, the one calling me was my sister!  She was calling me back while she was waiting for Mum to call her back!!

How funny is that?!  This all happened within the space of a few minutes!

In hindsight, we should have just added Mum to a three way call and done away with the “phone tag!”

Now, logically speaking, my mother, sister and I all talk to each other on a very regular basis (often daily), so for one of us to ring another while they were talking to the other is highly likely to happen, and actually HAS happened before.

What had NOT happened before, was the three of us all calling the other in a “tag-team-like” fashion!

Anyway, getting back to where I was going with this post … !

I find myself being amazed at these “coincidences” happening.  They always lead to me thinking about how different the situation would have turned out had one tiny thing been different.

Towards the end of last year, I was the parent on duty for the day at my son’s kindergarten (I did this on a regular basis and thoroughly enjoyed it – so did my son).

Fast forward to lunchtime on this particular day, and all the kinder children, the staff and I were sitting down to eat lunch.

As the children proceeded to open their lunchboxes, I heard one of the girls comment that she didn’t like the sandwiches that were in her lunchbox.  I looked across at her to see a rather unimpressed little face!

My first thought was, “How many kids say they don’t like what their mum gave them, only to find out later that they actually DO eat that food, and they simply wanted something else instead on that occasion?”

Then I heard one of the staff members say to her, “Well, Mum wouldn’t have given it to you if you don’t eat it” … snap!

Then the little girl (K) said, “R (her sister) has these sandwiches.  She’s probably got mine instead!”.

Given that the kindergarten is in a room at our primary school, I said to one of the staff that I would go to R’s classroom (K has 4 older sisters at this school!) to see whether they had, in fact, been given each others lunch.  I was more than happy to do that, but was told not to worry about it and that K could just eat whatever else she had in her lunchbox.

The staff member also said that R would have eaten the sandwiches already, given that the bell for the school children to go outside had rung five minutes earlier and they would all be outside playing.

Well, as it turned out, K only had a small container of fruit as an option, which certainly wouldn’t have filled anyone for lunch.

Right then and there, I thought, “I wouldn’t like any of my children to go hungry if this happened to them, and I’d like to think that somebody would make the effort to help them out.”

So, I got up and said to one of the staff, “Okay.  I’m going to see if I can find R on the off chance that she didn’t eat K’s sandwiches” …

Can you imagine my utter astonishment when I stepped through the kinder doorway, into the hallway, only to see the very sister who I set out to find!

R had come back inside quickly to get a ball (the students aren’t allowed back inside once they’ve gone outside!), and she was on her way out the door again – literally!  Two seconds later and I wouldn’t have seen her!

I called out to R and asked if she’d eaten her sandwiches.  She said, “No, Mum gave me K’s sandwiches and I don’t eat those ones!” Guess what I had in my hand?  R’s sandwiches!  We both smiled and laughed as we went back to her classroom where she gave me K’s sandwiches.

I returned to the kinder room with K’s sandwiches which I very happily handed to her.  “Thank you, Kylie!”, K said with a huge smile on her face. 

Not only was K obviously very happy that she had her lunch, I felt pleased with myself that I’d done something nice for her, something that nobody else apparently felt was worth doing.

Then I sat down and ate my own lunch, thinking about how different things would have turned out for K and R had that series of events NOT happened exactly as they had.

Now, going back to Carl Jung’s definition of synchronicity where the coincidences are meaningful ones (to those involved), in a seemingly random series of events, do you think that the “sandwich incident” was synchronicity in action, or mere coincidence?

I believe it was synchronicity, however, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.  Plus, if you would like to share any of your experiences with synchronicity (either in your business or personal life), then please do so below.

Oh, and one more thing … if you enjoyed this post, please leave me a comment and Tweet it, Digg it or Share it with your Facebook friends.  Thanks!

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