A world of Liquid Luck

Sometimes movies have beautiful life-philosophy moments, and I'd like to share with you one that I experienced recently in the new Harry Potter movie.

In the movie, Harry uses an elixir of liquid luck to convince Professor Slughorn to share a memory with him. It works like this: Harry fixes his mind on what he wants to accomplish (get the memory), drinks the elixir, and then follows his gut impulses. Instead of taking the logical step of going to Slughorn's office, Harry goes to see his friend Hagrid, and a series of seemingly coincidental events ensue, resulting in a night of drunk revelry and Harry finding just the right moment to ask for--and get--the memory. Impossible to design in advance, brilliant in hindsight.

This is probably one of my favorite Harry Potter moments. Wouldn't it be great if we all had little bottles of liquid luck, to direct at whatever purpose we wanted?

The thing is, though, I think we might. Have you ever wanted something really really badly, and then gotten it through the most random ways? Oftentimes if something comes our way not through hard work, but through a series of unplanned events, we call it coincidence or chance. But what if that whole process is really like Harry drinking liquid luck: you set your mind's eye on your goal, put the request out there, believe it'll come, and then watch it all unfold?

I've had several examples of liquid luck in my life, and the more I think about it, the more I find. Here's one of my favorites: when I first entered MIT, I attended a talk by Nobel Laureate and President of Cal Tech, David Baltimore. I stole a quick moment with him afterwards, and asked him which of two labs I should join. I followed his recommendation, and am happy I did. A few years later, we were both speaking at the same conference on the Berkeley campus, and I set my intention on pulling him aside and thanking him for the advice. The problem was that he was pretty much going to arrive, give his talk, and leave--not much time to pin him down. Glug glug liquid luck. The day of the conference, I was a ball of nerves about my talk, and so I went off into a remote building far from the conference, and found a quiet deserted corridor in which to practice my speech. I paced around, talking to myself, gesturing, etc. And then I heard someone behind me say "excuse me." Turning around, I saw none other than David Baltimore standing there! Just me and him in a deserted hallway far from the conference. He had gotten lost on the way to the conference, and was looking for directions. I could barely speak I was so stunned. Impossible to design in advance, brilliant in hindsight. Could that have been liquid luck?

That is a spine-tingley example. But I think there are other more ordinary ones in day-to-day life as well. For example, I was recently looking for a new artistic hobby, but hadn't found any of interest. So I set my intention on finding one, but did not design any concrete steps. Glug glug liquid luck. Meanwhile, I invited my friend Casey to hang out, we chose a weekend, and then he realized that that weekend was Somerville Open Studios, where artists open their homes to showcase their work. We picked out a few artists, none of whose crafts particularly interested me, nor was I particularly looking for a craft for myself, but on our way back to the car, we walked by a house with a terrific stained glass peacock in the window. We stopped to admire it, and Casey discovered that this house was actually part of SOS. We entered the house, and guess what, the stained glass artist, Emily Bhargava, offered classes. Bingo! I am now taking stained glass classes, and it's exactly what I was looking for. Hard to design in advance, brilliant in hindsight. Could that have been liquid luck?

Will I ever be able to prove that my intention caused all of these paths to unfold before me? Nope. I certainly couldn't get another Ph.D. from MIT on the subject. But how much fun is it to live in a world where every twist and turn is part of a brilliant path to get you to what you desire? I'm looking at my life through the liquid luck lens.

When was the last time you drank liquid luck?

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