While observing stay-at-home orders, in addition to binge listening to The Lonely Palette (yes, that’s a plug), my wife and I have also binge watched a couple of TV shows. These were chosen very carefully through detailed research and a scientific method that went something like this:

Me: What do you want to watch?

Fran: I don’t know. What do you want to watch?

Me: How about Jurassic Park?

Fran: (with emotion) No!

Me: The Lost World: Jurassic Park?

Fran: Hell, no!

Me: Then... um...

Fran: We never watched all those New Amsterdam episodes we recorded.

Me: We only watched the premier.

Fran: Let’s watch the rest of season one and then season two.

Me: Ok.

And so it began. All was good - tears flowed, people died right and left, righteous indignation about the healthcare system surged, more tears flowed, cancer was contracted and survived, cancer was contracted and wound up being terminal, patients complained and croaked, doctors complained and croaked, still more tears flowed...

By the end of the second season, we were thoroughly depressed and also convinced that New Amsterdam was the ideal hospital with the ideal doctors, and also a complete and total fantasy land so far removed from reality, you can’t even see it from there.

It not only left us with a sense of anguish and ennui, but forced us to ask ourselves one critical question: What’s next?

As it turned out, a Jurassic Park marathon was NOT next. (I still have bruises from suggesting that.) This is Us was next.

If you are familiar with this popular show, you are probably laughing right now because you know that it is the only television drama sadder, more depressing, and laden with more tear-shedding opportunities than New Amsterdam. On the positive side, it’s told in an interesting, innovative, and entertaining way (sniff-sniff...).

But that’s not my point. What is my point, you’re asking? I’m thinking of a particular episode which illustrates in detail how Kevin (oldest son) misses out on a promising college and possibly pro football career by getting his knee destroyed in the final game of the high school schedule. (I think it was the final game. I might be wrong - I was busy looking for more Kleenex.)

So instead of playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers - his lifelong dream - he’s SOL. Right then, at that juncture, when his plans are obliterated by one violent tackle, he’s experiencing the onrush of a serendipitous detour.

Kevin winds up becoming an actor, lands a hit sitcom, and later degenerates into a drug addicted mess who can’t get over the premature death of his father or rebuild his relationship with his exwife or accept that his twin sister is getting married... yadda, yadda, yadda...

Yeah, it’s a prime time soap opera. And I’m sure all of that gets resolved eventually (we haven’t completed the binge). But this is the thing: Kevin has to shift gears in order to appreciate and take advantage of the serendipity factor.

Things happen. Bad things. All the time. (I’ll pause here while you rant about the terrible stuff that’s been going on in your life. It can be pandemic related or just run-of-the-mill crappola. Go ahead, let it out.)

Done? Okay. So none of us like the part where the bad stuff happens. But we do like the part where, seemingly by chance, the good stuff replaces the bad stuff and we wind up in a position that’s different, but often better than before.

I think God does that on purpose. You can think it’s karma or dharma or Jack Kerouac or fate or destiny or an alignment of the planets. (It’s a free country - most of the time.) Whatever and whoever you attribute that to, it’s one of the great things about life. But it’s also true that serendipity favors those who are prepared to bounce back from disappointment and accept the detour.

As the 1990s philosophers, Chumbawamba, once sang, “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you are never gonna keep me down!” I think good old Chumbawamba was on to something. Serendipity happens all the time. But we have to go with the flow. If we get knocked down and don’t get up again... If we give up... If we quit... Game over. It’s when we get hit in the face, do a freefall to the canvas, and then accept the challenge of rising, with the potential of taking another hit, that good things can happen.

We have to have a “why” we can run through walls with.

This is a good place to recount the story of Buster Douglas. I heard this on a motivational podcast. Douglas was a boxer who climbed into the ring with Mike Tyson. If you’ve ever seen a highlight reel of Tyson’s handiwork in the ring - i.e. knockout after knockout after vicious knockout - then you know that Douglas was either very brave or very stupid.

So guess what happened? Tyson knocked him down with 10 seconds left in the eighth round. Douglas only survived the round because the bell rang. He was literally saved by the bell. Coming out for the ninth, Tyson knew it was over. All he had to do was finish this guy like he had finished all of the other losers. Except there was something Tyson didn’t know. Douglas had promised his mother that he would win this bout. And his mother had died just days before the event. So he was very determined to keep his promise.

In the 10th round, Douglas did something no one had ever done before: he put Tyson down. He knocked out Mike Tyson! Douglas had a why. As a result, he got knocked down, but he got up again. And he not only survived the fight, he won.

As Billy Alsbrooks puts it (another motivational podcast): We have to have a “why” we can run through walls with.

Thus far in This is Us, Kevin doesn’t have a why. He’s just lucky. And talented. He needs a reason to kick the drugs, make amends with his family, pursue his career as an actor, put the past behind him and embrace all that serendipity that’s raining down on him.

(Editor’s note: I doubt he will. He’ll probably OD or get into a car accident - something sad and tragic. It’s not a happy show! Now Jurassic Park on the other hand... Sure, people die, but there are dinosaurs!)

What I’m getting at his this: life is hard. Notice the period on the end of that sentence. It’s true. But something else is true: there are always serendipitous detours awaiting us if we refuse to give up.

As Winston Churchill once famously put it: Never give in. Never give in. Never. Never. Never. Never.

I think he was on to something.