Have you ever had one of those moments where life seems to hand you exactly what you were looking for, but not in the way you expected?
Say “yes” because that’s what happens with almost all of us. It’s almost as if the universe waits for you to stop trying so hard before stepping in with a quiet, “Here you go.”
Well, that’s how I found the name “Boundless” for my book. For weeks, I had been going around in circles to come up with a name that stuck. I first thought I would call it “Words to Live By,” and then “The Journal of Wisdom.”
But both sounded too clichéd, and especially “The Journal of Wisdom.” Readers would have thought I was too lazy to name my second book so, after the first being “The Sketchbook of Wisdom.”
I was stuck. And the more I tried to get to a title that really hit home, the less inspired I felt. I thought of coming back to it after a month or so.
Then, out of nowhere, it happened. I was about to take a seat in a restaurant for an anniversary meal with my wife, when I saw a magazine—turned upside down, and soiled with pasta sauce—on my designated table and called the staff to take it away. As I casually picked it up to keep it aside, my eyes landed on the word Boundless, written in very small font, on the front cover.
It hit me like a spark. “Boundless” was it! Somehow, I didn’t see it just as a title, but a feeling, an idea. It was exactly what I wanted my book to capture—freedom, growth, and the sense that life is boundless if we let it be.
I have had several encounters with serendipity in the past—in finding friends, stocks, books to read, among other things. And every time I look back at those moments, they remind me how many things or people we find in life come to us not when we are in the process of “finding”, but when we step away from it. They sneak in when we least expect them, when we’ve let our guards down just enough to notice.
Honestly, I think that’s the beauty of it. And a reminder that not everything in life can be planned or controlled. Sometimes, the best things happen when we step back and give life a chance to surprise us.
That word—Boundless—didn’t come from hours of brainstorming or a flash of brilliance. It came from an ordinary moment, a random magazine, and a little bit of luck.
And maybe that’s the lesson—sometimes, we must stop searching for life to find us.