Plan to be Spontaneous

I opened a fortune cookie Saturday night and was told I should engineer some serendipity.

Easier said than done when the garage needs cleaning and your wife's complaining the women in her compassion class are fusspots.

But nobody said Buddhafication would be easy.

“Guess what?" says mindfulness guru Jon Kabat-Zinn. "When it comes right down to it, wherever you go, there you are."

Whatever has happened to you has already happened.

Wait. What? There's more?

Yes. That's only the penultimate McMindfulness nugget. 

Make room for eternity.

Because matter is finite but time is not, according to the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, we should embrace wholeheartedly the ineluctable "Eternal Recurrence of the Same."

Eternity is nothing less that the endless and identical repetition of all the physical events in the universe, in all their odious detail.

So not only has whatever has happened to you already happened, it will happen to you again—and again and again and again ad infinitum.

So you'd better not only live your life, but love it, Nietzsche says; avow what he calls amor fati—love of fate.

And, what the hell, plan to be spontaneous, too.

A Shark in Sheep's Clothing

Sharklike companies scare clients off.

So it's heartening to see a venture capital firm so self-confident it's willing to empathize.

Rare for the breed, First Round telegraphs amity at every juncture.

The firm, for example, advertises on its website the 80 events it sponsors every year.

It doesn't push a calendar of dates and locations, but instead explains why events have value:

Starting a company is lonely, and founders have to make difficult decisions every day with imperfect information. In our experience, the best safety net is the advice and experience of fellow entrepreneurs.

The firm's gentle touch then assures sheepish clients participation will pay off:

Whenever we get members of our community in a room, magic happens. That’s why our Knowledge Program’s robust events—ranging from cozy dinners to major summits—are designed to get real, vulnerable conversations started. People leave with new ideas and actions they can apply immediately to keep growing and getting better. You won’t find any stick-on name tags here—we hate them.

How about you? Is your website all facts and mission talk? Or do you show clients you understand their fears?

When you evidence a bit of empathy, you boost your effectiveness. As direct marketer Hershell Gordon Lewis advises:

"If we can avoid becoming so wrapped up within the cocoon of our organization’s purpose, goals, and means of recruitment, effectiveness has to go up. So as best you can, you should apply this litmus test to any messages you’re considering sending: If I were receiving this message, not sending it, would it motivate me to respond? 

"See how easy? See how rare?"

The New New Age

Were he to examine some of Facebook's users, Freud would have a field day.

The good doctor said children, primitives and neurotics all shared an "animistic" view of the universe. Every object has a will that "magical thoughts" can command.

This self-loving "omnipotence" forms the very root of narcissism, Freud believed.

So it's no surprise today's selfie-obsessed customers are embracing magical thinking, as a new report from JWT Intelligence asserts.

New-age accoutrements like crystals, gongs, incense and magic creams are hot, the report says.

"As we navigate through the stress and mundanity of our everyday existence and parallel online lives, we are increasingly turning to unreality as a form of escape and a way to search for other kinds of freedom, truth and meaning.

"What emerges is an appreciation for magic and spirituality, the knowingly unreal, and the intangible aspects of our lives that defy big data and the ultratransparency of the web."

And it's not just Trustafarians who are into magical thinking.

According to Pew Research Center, while the percentage of Americans who attend church declined between 2007 and 2014, the percentage who say they routinely "feel a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being” increased.

"This is being played out via a third-wave New Age for a post-digital generation, which is seeking spirituality through crystals, astrology, sound baths, tarot and tapping. What differentiates this new New Age from its previous incarnations is that the alternative beliefs and practices are now considered serious, irony-free, credible, millennial friendly and cool."