Post 5- Synchronicity

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Post 5

I enjoyed reading the synchronicity article and found myself humming Police songs…just kidding…sort of. I am open to “nonlinear and acausal phenomenon” as a factor in the outcomes of life (Guindon & Hanna, 2002). It made sense to me that Guindon and Hanna (2002) encourage considering synchronicity as a component of holistic counseling. For me, I viewed this idea as meeting a client “where he/she is at”. It seems like a further pursuit of a client’s unique perception of events. I think as counselors it is important to look for every avenue possible to achieve the client’s goals. I also kept thinking of the previous article on spirituality and religiosity by Duffy. Synchronicity seems spiritual to me also. It has of qualities hope and faith that are often considered helpful in career choice, decision-making and pursuit of goals. It seems to me that human beings are continuously trying to make meaning from events. I think it adds to our sense of safety and security in the world. I am interested in Eastern philosophy, and I have to admit that I do not know as much as I would like at this point. I always welcomed the Buddhist tenet of interconnectedness. In some spiritual way, I resonate to the idea that my actions and life are connected to everything and everyone else. I think we can’t help but impact others and our environment daily, in the smallest of ways. I think dreams can be very meaningful. I have had dreams that I thought was my subconscious speaking to me when it could gain an audience.

I think we can consider the first form of synchronicity this article in terms of being at the “right place at the right time”.  Guindon and Hanna (2002) say that the first form of synchronicity is a coincidence between our personal intuition and an outer event happening at the same time. I know several personal examples of this happening to people in my life. My father-in-law says that after completing his plumbing apprenticeship, he considered starting his own business –at that time a business became available to him to purchase and a friend of his father offered him a very profitable job that would pay for “start up” expenses. It all fell together and he believed he was on the right track. He has owned that business for 25 years. My Italian mother always tells me that if the universe is fighting you too hard, you are on the wrong track. The Italian side of me is quite superstitious and believes in “signs”. My own father (I just found out) was on his way to one job interview and stopped at a red signal light next to his (then, future) employer (of 28 years). He decided to turn in and find out if he could work there. He had quit his current job the day before on a “feeling”. He walked in and the man hired him on the spot. My dad says he would have never turned in there if the light didn’t turn red. He said he “just had a feeling” the day before when he quit the first job, that there was something more out there for him. By the way, that all happened on my first birthday. Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers talks about highly successful people. He spend some time talking about how people are often in the right place at the right time – Bill Gates being one of them. I think this is an interesting aspect of career development. Plus I would hate to miss out on the mystical and magical of the world. :-)

Reference:
Guindon, M.H. & Hanna, F. J. (2002). Coincidence, happenstance, serendipity, fate, or the hand of god: Case studies in synchronicity. The Career Development Quarterly, 50, p. 195- 208.