Kate Farnady: In Search of Serendipity

Kate Farnady shares about the unexpected benefits of breaking out of her comfort zone.

Most mornings, I drag myself out of bed and drive to the Albany Bulb. I know I’ll find sand, salt water and a mile to swim in the San Francisco Bay. What I don’t know is everything else. Will the water be silky smooth with a pink cast from the sunrise? Will I face a wall of summer fog?

Who will be there? I might have made a plan with someone in the Signal group, only to find they slept through their alarm.

Then Kira shows up. The two of us swim together, talking about the quiet fear of not keeping up with the faster swimmers. It’s a conversation I didn’t know I needed. That’s not just luck. That’s serendipity. The word is more than 270 years old, coined from a Persian fairy tale. In the words of writer Horace Walpole, “three princes made fortunate discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” Sagacity includes the wisdom to notice what’s right in front of you. We don’t use that word much anymore.

Maybe because we’ve built a world designed to eliminate accidents. Algorithms predict what we want before we want it. AI flattens and averages. Our feeds are optimized. Our directions get recalculated and rerouted. We lose the practice of paying attention. One morning, wading into the cold, my friend Kim said: “This is the worst part.” But what if it is the best part?

The part where you feel the cringe, the cold, the lost comfort zone. Science tells us the brain needs this – that a life without disruption switches off our capacity to learn. But I’ve found, the colder the water, the bigger the bliss. I’ve learned, stroke by stroke, that serendipity isn’t something that happens to you.

It’s something you cultivate. You show up. You notice the person standing next to you. You ask the question you hadn’t planned to ask. You follow the unexpected collision wherever it leads. You treat the day like a scavenger hunt, full of unexpected treasures and unimagined outcomes.
With a Perspective, I’m Kate Farnady.

Kate Farnady is a California native, a mom, an open water swimmer and lifelong artist who has spent her career building relationships and telling stories that move people to act.