Which camp do you belong to: Our destiny is already written, or Life is simply random? Lately I find myself returning to the question more often than I used to — a symptom of age, no doubt! Looking back at my life and career — the path I took, the decisions, the plans I made, some with rather less thought than they deserved — I am struck by how neatly things have fallen into place, and rarely because I engineered them. It is the timing that convinces me. The right people and opportunities seem to arrive at exactly the right moment, never sooner and never later, with a precision my own planning has never quite achieved.
This year, for instance, I discovered horseracing, breeding and ownership in the UK and Australia. The interest, the passion and the full-blown obsession all arrived together — and in the Year of the Horse no less. Whoever is writing my life story has a sense of humour!
The timing was fortuitous too. Not so long ago the whole idea would have been unthinkable (i.e. unaffordable). I was building Healthy Options, which absorbed my time, my attention, my capital and whatever capacity I might otherwise have had for pursuing anything beyond it. Now, with more time and rather more means, horseracing has found me. Coincidence, or a chapter held back until I was ready to read it?
People who know me well might assume this latest obsession will prove another fleeting interest. It will not. Horseracing — the Sport of Kings (and the king of sports) is the most intellectually stimulating thing I have ever taken up: pedigrees, conformation, performance, probability, and the endless business of forming a judgement and then living with it. It is consuming, addictive and I love every minute of it! Little wonder the British Royal family remain so devoted to it, even after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, who was an avid and knowledgeable horseracing enthusiast. For me, it feels remarkably like building a start-up company again: the same challenges, the same buzz, the same conviction that this one will be exciting and different.
Destiny or randomness, I jumped in with blind abandon (just as I did in founding Healthy Options) — and I have been very lucky to meet many kind and generous people so early in my interest who took the trouble to share their knowledge, their experience and, most valuable of all, their connections. They have shortened my learning curve and opened doors I could never have opened alone. If there is a design at work, my own contribution has been curiosity, enthusiasm and a willingness to dive in and learn.
Perhaps destiny is simply randomness with a good editor, and hindsight is the one tidying the loose ends into something that reads like a plan. Either way, I intend to keep showing up and diving in! Steve Jobs said that you cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards, and so you have to trust that somehow they will. This one I can attest to 100%.
I guess in the end, the camp we belong to matters less than what we do once we have chosen it. Founding Healthy Options changed my life, and in the process touched thousands of others — helping people make better choices and live healthier lives. There were a number of ways it could have failed, and reasons enough for it to have done so. It did not. Whether that was written or simply stumbled into, I really can’t say.
So, gratitude is what you owe when the timing was better than your planning, and it has been a truly wonderful life. The least I can do is keep noticing it, keep saying thank you, and to Be Kind.
Best of health,
romy@healthyoptions.com.ph
