Is It Just Me? Or Is It Synchronicity? (99)

What an interesting concept.  Synchronicity.  Carl Jung came up with the word in the 1920s, but the activity has probably been around since Adam and Eve.

This is something that used to happen to me all the time with certain of my clients.  I would be standing by my desk or in the hallway near my office and mention to someone that there may be something of interest I should share with one of my clients.  Or I might say, I wonder how George is doing this week?  And, what do you know?  The phone would ring and it would be George, or what ever client I was thinking of at the time.  This happened to me at least several times a week.  So much so that other people in my office started referring to me as a ‘spook.’ 

I used this in reverse too.  If there was someone I especially did not want to chat with or see, I would intentionally block them from my thoughts until I was ready to visit with them.  It almost always worked.

Now, there can be explanations for this beyond synchronicity.  It could just be timing.  I mean, if George usually talked with me every three weeks and it was in my mind that the three week period was coming up, perhaps the two things just fell together naturally.  I knew we should be talking because it was time.  So, of course, he would call on schedule.

But, I kind of don’t think so.  I like the meaning of synchronicity.  It some how delivers answers without the linkage of cause and effect.  It is sort of like coincidence, and yet, there is a meaning to it, a purpose.  George didn’t just call because he liked me.  His calls were typically because he needed an idea from me or he needed something done and wanted some direction on it.

Synchronicity used to also happen with me with family members and usually when something sad was about to happen. I, spur of the moment, grabbed the phone and called my sister in law. Yes, she was ill but in remission from her leukemia. I wasn’t thinking she was about to die. I just suddenly decided I wanted to say a quick hello and then let my husband spend some quality time on the phone with her. He was taken by surprise too as I didn’t tell him before I made the call. I just handed him the phone and he had a very sweet 1 hour plus phone conversation with his ‘baby’ sister. All three of us felt really good after that call. The next week the remission was over and she left us. It was a spontaneous action with a meaningful purpose. Synchronicity.

There have been some fun times recently with past clients when I have had a sudden urge to call them and they just happen to be in need of my ideas. Timing was right; they said they were just about to call me. How wonderful to have this magical tie to friends/clients and family.

Whether it is synchronicity or coincidence, I don’t know or care. A rose by any other name, after all, will always smell like a rose.

(FYI Wonderful quote from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.” One of my favorite plays with great passages to memorize and enjoy. Not thrilled with the ending, but it made a lasting impression. Gertrude Stein also enjoyed this passage from Shakespeare as evidenced in probably her most quoted phrase, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” It was included as a part of her 1913 poem Sacred Emily, which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays.)