Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.
Serendipity
I absolutely agree with Maiya that serendipity occurs randomly and is out of our control. If serendipity means “unexpected happiness”, I believe nobody will resist it since everyone wants to be happy. However, relating to the book, I think the author talk about the serendipity in regard of making a choice. He encourages people to be satisfiers who always have lower expectations and thus are less likely to disappoint. If something good happens to a satisfier’s decision, they consider it as a “serendipity”, which will make them happier than maximizer even if they make the same decision. I would say I agree with the author’s idea of being a satisfier, though his suggestion of limiting choices to only two sounds impossible for me. I choose to agree with him because of my own shopping experience. Before I decided to my latest cell phone, I did a lot of research online: I read all the comments, watched all the clips about its functions and compared its price from different online stores. I was pretty sure that it would be the best fit for me. However, after I used it for a month, I found it worthless despite of its fancy appearance. I chose my digit camera in a simpler way. I knew I liked it at first sight so I decided to buy it. I had no idea of all the functions of it when I bought it. But now it is working quite well, which is “serendipity” for me, I guess. I think what the author try to tell us is that people should simply limit their choices and be happy with whatever choice they have made.