Ling’s Letters #005: There are no coincidences, or are they?
Is a coincidence just a random accident, or could it be a sign of something more? Some dismiss coincidences as mere chance, while others view them as small miracles. What do you believe?
Hello dear friends,
I hope you are enjoying the summer break if you’re based in the northern hemisphere. 🎉 If you’re not on a summer break, I hope this letter finds you well. 🥰
Recently, I reflected on three peculiar incidents that seemed like random events happening close to each other. These seem like coincidences to me—or are they?
Master’s Project Defense
On the morning of 13th December 2021, the day of my master’s project defense, I received an SMS warning from the Lisbon council to stay home. Torrential rain battered Lisbon throughout the night, flooding streets, metro stations, tunnels, and homes. All public transportation was disrupted. Buses were halted, and metro stations closed.
Lisbon has never experienced such a catastrophic flood before.
Yet, my metro ride to the university was smooth. There were no flooded stations or blocked streets on the way to campus. The review panel arrived slightly later, as expected under such circumstances. Yet, in my nervousness, I presented my master’s project titled “Examining Zomi Refugees’ Psychological Adaptation with the Psychological Antecedents of Refugee Integration Model”. After which, the panel deliberated on my defense and shortly after announced that I graduated from the master’s with an excellent grade.
PhD Project Proposal Defense
On the morning of May 24th, 2023, the day of my PhD project proposal defense, the metro station next to my flat was closed. People were stranded outside the metro station and scrambled to get on any bus. When I saw the closed station, I hopped on a bus just about to depart. The bus dropped me off at a stop about a 30-minute walk from the university.
A tram derailed near Alvalade metro station, which halted the yellow and green metro lines all morning.
Yet, I arrived on campus early, and the review panel arrived on time. I presented my PhD project proposal, titled “Developing a comprehensive, evidence-based, multi-nationally validated scale of refugee psychological and sociocultural adaptation.” After which, the panel briefly deliberated and announced that the university had officially accepted my project proposal.
First Presentation at an International Conference in Prague
The International Council of Psychologists (ICP) Annual Meeting was recently held at the Prague Economics and Business University on July 19th and 20th, 2023. On the first day of the conference, as I networked with my fellow colleagues over coffee and croissant sandwiches, the ICP’s Secretary General apologised for the technological issues.
A global IT outage affected airlines, hospitals, and other public services. Our colleagues were stranded in airports on their way to Prague.
On the second day, our colleagues arrived safely. We proceeded with the Annual Meeting of roundtables and presentations from distinguished ICP members. For this conference, I made my 3-minute statement at a roundtable about Psychology and Democracy and my 15-minute presentation titled “The Host Country’s Role in Refugees’ Subjective Well-Being and Perceived Discrimination”. After which, fellow ICP members showered compliments, and the association leaders requested that I present again at next year’s conference.
Coincidence? Or not?
Some believe that there are no coincidences. Diaconis and Mosteller’s 1989 paper defined coincidence as:
"... a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, yet lacking any apparent causal connection."
These three seemingly unrelated incidents—each involving a major public transportation disruption before a key presentation—shared an intriguing pattern. These events, all tied to the psychology of refugees, culminated in successful presentations that received widespread praise.
I’m still searching for the deeper meaning behind these public transport mishaps and my own successful presentations. Perhaps the answer will reveal itself in time, or maybe there’s no deeper significance at all... just a simple coincidence.
What do you think?
Food For Thought
Julie Beck, a writer at The Atlantic, wrote an article – “Coincidences and the Meaning of Life.”
Even within the relatively limited sample of your own life, there are all kinds of opportunities for coincidences to happen. When you consider all the people you know and all the places you go and all the places they go, chances are good that you’ll run into someone you know, somewhere, at some point. But it’ll still seem like a coincidence when you do. When something surprising happens, we don’t think about all the times it could have happened, but didn’t. And when we include near misses as coincidences (you and your friend were in the same place on the same day, just not at the same time), the number of possible coincidences is suddenly way greater. A coincidence is in the eye of the beholder.
Questions for you
- Have you ever experienced coincidences or synchronous events before? What happened?
- Do you believe coincidences have meaning? If so, has it helped you in any way?
