{"id":2506,"date":"2026-03-09T17:30:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/?p=2506"},"modified":"2026-03-09T17:30:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:30:53","slug":"the-best-things-in-your-life-knocked-softly-you-called-it-coincidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/09\/the-best-things-in-your-life-knocked-softly-you-called-it-coincidence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Things in Your Life Knocked Softly. You Called It Coincidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Stop Waiting for the Neon Sign. It’s Not Coming.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Nobody told Ratan Tata<\/em><\/span> that buying a crumbling British car brand called Jaguar<\/em> <\/span>would become one of India’s most audacious business pivots. There was no thunderclap. No divine memo. Just a quiet, almost reluctant “let’s see what this could be.”<\/p>\n

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That’s the thing nobody warns you about.<\/p>\n

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The problem with “hell yes or no<\/em><\/span>” \u2014 Derek Sivers<\/span>‘<\/a> famously seductive idea \u2014 is that it assumes the best things in your life show up on a eight horse carriage, carrying balloons, with a brass band behind them. That clarity is the currency of significance. That your gut will send you a push notification when something matters.<\/p>\n

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It mostly doesn’t.<\/p>\n

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What actually happens is the thing that changes your life looks, at first, suspiciously like nothing.<\/p>\n

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Howard Schultz<\/span><\/em> didn’t walk into a Milan espresso bar and hear angels. He just noticed something warm about how Italians gathered around coffee. The certainty came\u00a0after<\/em> the curiosity. Years after. They called it The Third Place.<\/em><\/span> We started calling it Starbucks<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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Butterflies don\u2019t follow plans. They follow nectar. Maybe we should too<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Which brings me to butterflies<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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Butterflies don’t plan routes. They follow nectar \u2014 one bloom, then another, then another that wasn’t in any flight plan. What looks like wandering\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0the navigation. The path emerges through the following, not the knowing.<\/p>\n

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Though, I must add here that we’ve been sold the opposite story. We’re told that decisive people feel decisive before<\/em><\/span>\u00a0they decide. That the greats\u00a0knew<\/em><\/span>. We’ve reverse-engineered their confidence from their outcomes and mistaken the ending for the beginning.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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A.R. Rahman<\/em><\/span> sat with quiet experiments in his head for years before\u00a0Roja<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>exploded onto the world. Sudha Murthy<\/em><\/span> almost didn’t send that now-legendary postcard to Telco<\/em><\/span> calling out their gender bias. The quiet almost won. Almost.<\/p>\n

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History\u2019s Quiet Beginnings<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Some of the most transformative ideas in the world started as hesitant \u201cmaybes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When\u00a0Steve Jobs<\/em><\/span>\u00a0first visited Xerox PARC<\/em> <\/span><\/a>and saw the graphical interface, he didn\u2019t experience a thunderbolt. What he saw was a rough prototype that most people at\u00a0Xerox<\/em><\/span>\u00a0had already dismissed.<\/p>\n

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But Jobs lingered.<\/p>\n

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That lingering curiosity eventually became the\u00a0Apple Macintosh<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Not a Hell Yes. A\u00a0slow-burning fascination<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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The Danger of Binary Thinking<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHell Yes or No<\/span><\/em>\u201d thinking is efficient.<\/p>\n

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But life rarely operates in binaries.<\/p>\n

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Many breakthroughs begin in the\u00a0third territory<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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Not yes.
\nNot no.<\/p>\n

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But\u00a0interesting<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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That middle space<\/span><\/em> is where exploration<\/em><\/span> lives.<\/p>\n

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Consider the story of\u00a0Amitabh Bachchan.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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When he entered cinema, he was rejected repeatedly. His voice was considered unsuitable for radio.<\/p>\n

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There was no industry consensus shouting \u201cHell Yes<\/em><\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Yet his persistence quietly reshaped Indian cinema.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes the world needs time to catch up to an idea<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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The Hidden Cost of Certainty<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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When leaders demand only \u201cHell Yes\u201d moments, something subtle dies. Curiosity<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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Because curiosity rarely arrives with confidence.<\/p>\n

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It arrives with\u00a0questions<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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What if?<\/em><\/p>\n

Why not?<\/em><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s try.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Some of the most interesting ventures in the world began this way.<\/p>\n

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The founders of\u00a0Airbnb\u00a0<\/em><\/span>were not convinced they were building a global hospitality revolution.<\/p>\n

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They were just trying to pay rent.<\/p>\n

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But curiosity<\/em><\/span> kept the door open long enough for something remarkable to enter.<\/p>\n

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A Better Decision Filter<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead of asking only: \u201cIs this a Hell Yes?\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Try three quieter questions:<\/p>\n

1. Is there nectar here?<\/em><\/span>
\nDoes this spark curiosity or fascination?<\/p>\n

2. What is the smallest experiment I can run?<\/em><\/span>
\nButterflies sample flowers. They don\u2019t buy the garden.<\/p>\n

3. Would ignoring this make me regretful later?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Regret is often the shadow of unexplored curiosity.<\/p>\n

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So what do you actually do with this?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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One: Start treating whispers as data.<\/em><\/span> When something keeps returning to your mind uninvited \u2014 not screaming, just hovering \u2014 that’s signal, not noise. Track it. A week of noticing beats a lifetime of waiting for certainty.<\/p>\n

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Two: Lower the stakes of the first step.<\/em><\/span> The “hell yes or no” framework creates a binary that paralyzes. Replace it with “hell yes, no, or I’ll spend 90 minutes finding out<\/em>.” Most life-changing decisions were really just slightly curious afternoons that compounded.<\/p>\n

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Three: Audit your “almosts.”<\/em><\/span> The thing you almost signed up for. The person you almost called back. The side project you almost started. Somewhere in that graveyard is your next real thing. Go back. Not all of them deserve resurrection \u2014 but one might.<\/p>\n

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The loudest things in your life are usually the least interesting. Notifications. Arguments. Ambitions borrowed from someone else’s highlight reel.<\/p>\n

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The quietest things \u2014 a recurring dream, a skill you keep circling, a conversation that somehow keeps finding you \u2014 those are writing you a letter. In very small handwriting.<\/p>\n

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You don’t need a hell yes. You need to lean in and actually read it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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PS: <\/strong><\/em>On a completely different note,\u00a0<\/em>I am delighted to share that\u00a0<\/em>my other blog\u00a0SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/a>is now a Podcast as well.\u00a0<\/em>You can access it on these links below:<\/p>\n