Happy accident — dream or reality?

“It exists always and everywhere, our unconscious predisposition to experience a miracle,” wrote Carl Gustav Jung*. Indeed, such amazing, inexplicable incidents happen that you can’t call them anything other than fate.

“When I was young, my grandfather once waited for a girl outside the cinema, but she didn’t come,” says 37-year-old Maria. — And next to her grandmother was waiting for a young man who was still not there. They saw each other — and it was love at first sight.» Another story about a striking coincidence: “I went abroad with a friend, but soon ran away, saying that I urgently needed to return to St. Petersburg because I was hired by a good company,” recalls 40-year-old Ekaterina. “I made it all up from start to finish. But what was my amazement when the next day the phone rang: I was invited for an interview — in the firm that I named! It turned out that a friend sent my resume to her friend — the head of personnel in that company. And now I’ve been working there for 10 years.» And another amazing story: a British family — Barry and Izzy Sim with their young son — did not get on the plane, which crashed near Donetsk this year. They said that they always flew with Malaysia Airlines, preferring this company to others. But that time the seats were sold out and they had to buy tickets for a later flight from another airline. What is it, really a happy occasion or a way to explain to yourself an event that causes too strong emotions?

“I was crying on the way to the airport… I felt like I was given a second chance,” admits Izzy**. But after all, this family simply did not have time to buy tickets — so does this mean that they miraculously escaped death? Is there an unreasonable coincidence of events behind the case (from the old Russian “co-luke”: to connect), or does it manifest itself as a certain common plan or Jungian unus mundus, a single world in which spirit and matter are inextricably merged? And why do we still prefer to believe in luck?

Explain the inexplicable

“It’s hard to accept the idea that it’s all just a coincidence,” admits existential psychologist Yevgeny Osin. – Although even in science, for example in chemistry, the result of a reaction is sometimes impossible to predict, since it depends on many factors. We talk about randomness when we cannot accurately determine the reasons for which this or that event occurs. This means that we cannot predict whether it will happen next time and control it. This uncertainty causes anxiety, and the belief that events are not accidental, that there is some general principle behind them, «fate» or «luck», is a way to cope with this anxiety. It is much safer to believe in a lucky star.

“We need faith not only to survive, but above all, to start living,” notes psychoanalytic psychotherapist Svetlana Fedorova. When a baby is hungry and the mother comes to feed him, he believes that he himself called this nursing mother into existence. “He believes and must believe in it in order not only to feel his strength, but also to discover that this is a good strength, because it gives him what he lacks,” says Svetlana Fedorova. This illusion plays an important role in the development of the psyche: thanks to it, the child feels alive. Most of our beliefs serve the same purpose—to maintain confidence in ourselves and in life. “Then there comes a moment when it is time to give up some fantasies in order to get a clear idea of ​​reality,” continues Svetlana Fedorova. But in the face of the incomprehensible mystery of our human nature, we continue to believe in a miracle. Carl Gustav Jung spoke of how this faith feeds our will to live.

• They control our destinies

Explanatory styles

Where do people come from who consider themselves more fortunate than others? The basis of our ideas about ourselves is not so much facts as self-esteem, taken from past experience and the perception of others. Therefore, the minions of fate sometimes consider themselves to be those to whom she smiled not so often. Social psychologist Bernard Weiner found that some people attribute their success to internal reasons: “I am good at math, I did well for the exam,” while others attribute their success to external reasons: “I was lucky, I got an easy ticket.” The position of the first is active, they take responsibility. And the latter are rather passive and overestimate the role of chance — sometimes so much that they attribute “intention” to it.

Each of us explains what is happening to him, building a lot of cause-and-effect relationships, with the help of which he makes events look more or less controlled. The main thing is not to make a mistake in what is considered a cause and what is a consequence, because the one who considers himself a failure will indeed be less successful in a variety of situations. “This phenomenon, known as a self-fulfilling prophecy, is explained by the fact that the “loser” does not believe in his own strengths, does not develop them and does not try to show them, notes Evgeny Osin. “And vice versa: believing in yourself, even if it is not based on anything, inspires us and helps us achieve better results.”

Nature is a fool, fate is a turkey …

Believing in luck helps reduce the anxiety and fear of failure that often gets in the way of realizing oneself. But it can also be a way to absolve yourself of responsibility. For example, belief in luck is also characteristic of people with depression, who are haunted by a feeling of inability to change anything in life on their own, disbelief that their actions will lead to a good result ***. In this case, a person stops setting goals and achieving them, constantly expecting favors from fate, and in the end has every chance of becoming a loser and confirming his own theory.

“Faith in luck can help us, but if it is excessive, it is more likely to harm,” notes Evgeny Osin. — The most accurate position is realism: we cannot completely control any situation in life. But where something depends on our efforts, it is desirable to apply them. As the saying goes, «Trust in God, but don’t make a mistake yourself.»

Signs on the way

When two events between which there is no causal relationship occur simultaneously, the one who witnessed them can find meaning in this coincidence. Carl Gustav Jung was the first to give the name to this phenomenon — “synchrony”: “I was treating one young woman, and at a critical moment she had a dream in which she was handed a golden scarab. When she told me this dream of hers, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly, I heard a sound behind me, like a soft knock. I turned around and saw some kind of flying insect that was beating against the outside of the window pane. I opened the window and caught the creature on the fly … It was the closest analogue of the scarab that can only be found in our latitudes … «*. Jung does not claim that this was a message from heaven (although the scarab in ancient Egypt symbolized the new birth), but emphasizes that the coincidence made a huge impression on the patient, who until then «stubbornly clung to her ideas about reality», and thanks to this, the analysis «shifted off the ground.»

The ancient Greeks had the concept of kairos — «a favorable moment», which linked together time and action: either we feel «kairos» and begin to create our happy fate, or we do not notice it and nothing happens. Catching a lucky break means having a special view of the world. If we want something to happen, we can contribute to it by developing the ability to be surprised.