Picture This! We Are Lucky

January 28, 2013

I’ll admit it – I’m a surfer. Always have been.

If I have a few minutes between tasks at work I love to surf the internet.  If I’m watching TV by myself, I’ll just skip through the channels a couple of times with no particular destination.  On vacation, I love wandering by myself in the morning before everyone wakes up, just trying to get a sense of the city or town we’re in.

What am I looking for? Good question. When I think about it, I believe I’m looking for serendipity, a kind of pleasant surprise – a moment where all seems right with the universe. A bit like real surfing and actually catching a wave.

It’s a bit of a flakey, 60s kind of concept, but hey, I’m a child of the 60s. I love the Coke spot where everyone on the hilltop sang ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing.’  A little corny but sometimes today I fear that we’re all becoming a little too programmed, a little too settled in our beliefs and maybe just a little too sure of ourselves. Or maybe it’s just me.

So – that’s just a bit of an introduction into a little moment of serendipity that I found today – surfing the internet. A friend had sent me an ironic send up of a Coke video.

It’s a funny video, in a biting kind of way. But on one of the links at the end of the video was this link to a spot featuring “Anonymous,” a young guy with a unique project: giving away a thousand pounds to positive people and asking them to do something positive with it.

Anonymous documents the people and their thoughts. You can go to their website to see more. I couldn’t help but think this was a crazy, beautiful idea – We Are Lucky. You wander through the website and look at these beautiful, smiling faces and read their thoughts. It kind of reaffirms your faith in people.

It’s funny though, the Anonymous video is prefaced with Coke branding. I don’t think there’s a brand out there like Coke, that somehow celebrates the small moments in life (preferably with a Coke, I’m guessing.)  Sure there’s a cynical part of me that thinks they are master manipulators. But then there’s another part of me that thinks, good for you, you’re celebrating those small serendipitous moments that we all need more of.

So, here’s to the crazy ones:

And now, back to work.

Visit Picture This! to read more blogs by Richard.