The Beauty of Unintended Favourable Outcomes

Blessings often arrive in disguise

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

“Things do not always go the way you wanted, planned, or imagined. And beautiful things can come from that.” — Billy Oppenheimer

The expression “unintended consequences” usually refers to unplanned negative or perverse results, ignoring the fact that positive outcomes can happen unexpectedly. Both individuals and societies reap the benefits of unexpected good outcomes.

Unexpected blessings do not delight us to the extent unintended miseries sadden us. Our inherent negativity bias looks out for adverse results, which receive our close attention.

An unexpected favourable result makes us happy for a while and we move on without savouring and cherishing our good luck.

We may accept a job grudgingly. Later we discover that it helped us develop a hidden talent.

What appears as bad luck may turn out to be our good luck, like missing a flight that crashed later.

Science is full of accidental discoveries like pencillin and the X-Ray.

New technologies have beneficial side effects. The printing press and books democratised access to knowledge and challengted traditional hierarchies and power structures.

In India, the massive development and adoption of digital payment systems has reduced the dependency on paper currency. The smartphone doubled up as a mobile bank.Digital transactions leave a trail and curb tax evasion.

Sometimes, the paths we hesitated to walk may lead to beautiful destinations.

One possible reason for our lack of appreciation for unintended positve outcomes is we like to believe our success is fully earned. We highlight bad luck while ignoring good luck.

Embracing a grateful mindset can help us appreciate how what we got was not what we planned. Enhanced life appreciation makes us humble and compassionate.

Thanks for reading!