TALES OF SYNCHRONICITY (2)
There is no such thing as a coincidence.
Things coincide when we are ready.
Nothing happens by chance or by accident.
There are no accidents or chance encounters.
Everything happens for a reason.
Brenda De Lene
Synchronicity is the experience of two
or more events which are causally unrelated
occurring together in a supposedly meaningful manner. In order to count as synchronicity, the
events should be unlikely to occur together by chance (Wikipedia Encyclopedia).
Be Careful What You Want
When
the marriage of my wife, Brenda, broke up after 27 years, she left home with a
few clothes, no money and a car registered in her husband’s name. The car, a
Mercedes-Benz, had been exclusively in her possession for 18 years and she
assumed her husband would eventually transfer it to her name. He gave her an
undertaking to do so, provided she signed some papers relating to a business
loan (she was ostensibly a director of his business). She naively complied.
This mistake would eventually bankrupt her. Furthermore, he reneged on his
promise and refused to transfer the ownership of the car over to her.
This was a very uncomfortable and insecure
predicament. It became even more so after I resigned from my job with that
logistics company about two years later, because, after three months, I had to
turn in the company car. From then on, we thought we had to rely on her
ex-husband’s car (she was divorced by then) as our means of transport, because
we didn’t have enough money to buy our own vehicle.
We’d been paying the car’s registration
(albeit in her ex-husband’s name), repairs and maintenance costs and had it
covered for third party damage insurance only. However, always hanging over our
heads was the threat that Brenda’s ex-husband would demand its return. He
probably had a legal right to it, although his moral right would have been
questionable.
Apart from this uncertainty, Brenda wanted
to be free of this attachment to the past. It reminded her, particularly, of
her dependency on her ex-husband and her resulting lack of self-belief.
We often discussed the situation and we
both agreed, for peace of mind, we’d be better off without it. However, with no
means to buy another one, we thought we couldn’t do without it. So, on the one
hand, we didn’t want the car, but on the other, we were too afraid to
relinquish it.
Synchronicity then took the matter out of
our hands!
The catalyst
for the peculiar chain of events soon to follow was when Brenda shared her
thoughts about the car with a group, who were doing a workshop with us. She
said she wanted, above all else, to be free of the car.
Two weeks later she got what she wanted in
most unexpected circumstances!
We
enjoyed walking in the late afternoon or early evening and most days we used to
head for Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens or go for a walk along the Yarra River.
One evening we parked the car on an avenue
alongside the river. The avenue is a wide, safe road and we parked under a
lamppost near other parked cars. For no particular reason, Brenda preferred to
park the car about 800 metres further along the road from where we would have
normally parked.
Off we walked along the river to a riverside
cafe, where we sometimes stopped for a coffee. On previous walks we never had
anything to eat, however, that evening we were both hungry and decided to have
a snack. So, our coffee break of 10 - 15 minutes was extended to nearly an
hour.
Walking back to the car, we noticed in the
distance, lots of flashing lights and realized there must have been an
accident. As we drew closer, it was apparent the accident was close to where
we’d parked. Then, to our shock, we saw that Brenda’s car was involved.
From the front all seemed well, except the
car was awkwardly parked half on the road, half on the curb. When we looked at
the rear of the car, we saw that the boot had been crushed practically to the
rear window. About 15 metres behind our car, surrounded by debris, was an old
sedan similarly squashed in the front.
A very drunk driver had lost control of his
car on the relatively straight road and drove it, at full bore, into the rear
end of our car. Miraculously, he and his passenger sustained only minor
injuries.
Brenda’s car was a write-off. The other
driver, who was from interstate, was uninsured and within days had disappeared
without trace, before the insurance company could claim damages from him and
before the police could lay charges against him.
The circumstances were completely bizarre.
Why, out of all the cars parked along that well-illuminated, safe avenue that
night, had an uninsured drunken driver, who subsequently disappeared, ploughed
into the back of our car? The police, the tow-truck driver, the ambulance
officers - even the insurance company - all said the circumstances of the
accident were extraordinary to say the least.
There we were, suddenly and dramatically
without a car. Without our own means of transport, our immediate livelihood was
in jeopardy.
Although our plight seemed desperate, we
both knew synchronicity was at play. Not only did we get what we wanted, albeit
in a most unexpected way, somehow we knew things would work out for the best.
After Brenda and I received a lift home that
night, we realised we were free, at least, from one aspect of the dark cloud of
her ex-husband’s presence influencing our lives. Furthermore, Brenda was free
of yet another reminder of, and attachment to, her past.
The lesson for us, as a result of this
experience was:
Be careful in deciding what you
want,
because invariably, what you want is
what you get!
The
corollary to this episode in our lives was synchronicity playing the game out to its natural conclusion.
Following an intuitive thought, I visited a
nearby new car dealership. Several days later, Brenda and I were driving a
brand new, tiny sedan. It was no Mercedes-Benz, however it was ideal for our
needs.
Somehow, our application to finance the car had been approved. Our
weekly petrol bill was immediately reduced by two thirds. Maintenance and
repair costs were reduced by hundreds of dollars. These savings nearly made up
for its monthly financing cost.
We
couldn’t have imagined, in our wildest dreams, such a chain of events occurring
and the final outcome, which was perfect.
But Don, *everything* is synchronicity.
ReplyDeleteDon't you realise how incredibly unlikely every unique instant of your existence is?
Its truly a miracle no-one knocked you over the head years ago.