Serendipity

Serendipity:

when interesting or valuable discoveries are made by accident (LONGMAN)
the fact of sth interesting or pleasant happening by chance (OXFORD)

This word was coined by Horace Walpole (well-known as the author of "The Castle of Otranto") from his tale "The Tree Princes of Serendip" (Serendip is the present Sri Lanka). One of the character has this talent.

First time when I came across this word, I remembered the same title of movie. I didn't have a chance to watch it, though...

Serendipity seems to be used often in the field of science. Koich Tanaka, the Nobel Prize winner for chemistry in 2002, is a good example.

In the business world, Toyota Way is another example of serendipity. Now Toyota system looks like the best system from the first step, but actually its system is a result of continual efforts and "serendipity".

Although it couldn't be called serendipity, when I was a bookworm and thought about one theme and looked for some books everyday at the bookshops in Jinbo-cho or the library of the university, I could find what I wanted before I tried to find it. There was something like sparks flashing in my brain, that connect each other, and that power led me to the book, the line or the word.

That kind of serendipity might be happened only when I keep my tention high and look for something all day. I want to have such experiences again sometime.