I’ve had a few things happen recently that have made me stop and think, What a coincidence!

You know those moments when someone says something you were just thinking about? Or you randomly run into someone you had been talking about? Or you hear exactly the right song, see something that feels oddly specific, or have something happen at just the right moment?

Maybe it’s coincidence.

Or maybe it’s worth paying a little more attention.

One of my favorite books, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, has a line that I’ve thought about many times over the years:

“There’s no such thing as coincidence.”

In the book, Santiago begins to recognize what Coelho describes as a “mysterious chain” connecting the seemingly unrelated things that happen along his journey.

I love that idea.

Not because I think every little thing that happens is some grand cosmic message that we need to decode. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. But I do think we move through life so quickly that we can miss the things that are asking for our attention.

What if instead of saying, “What a coincidence,” we started asking, “Why did I notice that?”

That feels like a very different question.

Maybe the person you randomly ran into reminds you of something you’ve been avoiding.

Maybe a conversation you weren’t expecting gives you an idea you’ve been searching for.

Maybe you keep hearing the same message from different people, in different places, at different times.

Maybe something keeps showing up in your life until you finally stop long enough to ask yourself why.

I think there is something to be said for paying attention to those moments.

Not obsessing over them. Not trying to force meaning onto everything. Just being curious.

Because sometimes the message isn’t obvious when it first arrives.

Sometimes it’s a person.

Sometimes it’s an opportunity.

Sometimes it’s a door closing.

Sometimes it’s a feeling you can’t quite explain.

And sometimes it’s simply something that keeps showing up until you finally realize, Oh. Maybe I’m supposed to be looking at this a little closer.

I’ve always believed that our intuition knows more than we give it credit for. And maybe these little coincidences are one of the ways life gets our attention.

So lately, when something feels like a coincidence, I’m trying not to brush it off so quickly.

I’m asking myself:

Why this? Why now? Why did this catch my attention?

Maybe it means something.

Maybe it doesn’t.

But I’m learning that there’s nothing to lose by looking a little closer.

Because what if the things we call coincidences are actually little breadcrumbs along the way?

Maybe life is always giving us clues.

We just have to slow down enough to notice them.

XX,

MG