A Fortunate Accident

In most classic love stories the idea of fate taking its course to bring two people together is an aspect of the story which is in the background. In Serendipity, it is the obvious spoken theme, with each character giving their views on fate and signs on how they make decisions. John and Sara meet one Christmas Eve in New York while purchasing a gift for their significant other. The circumstances lead them to an enjoyable evening, where they eventually part, leaving each other desiring to meet again but leaving it in fate's hands to bring them back together. They go through a length of time where they both search for the clues they had put into place, but are unsuccessful in finding each other. Both of them end up staying in the relationships they are in and both end up on the path to getting married.

One day, while preparing for his wedding and packing for the honeymoon, he comes across one of the gloves he and Sara purchased together that memorable evening years ago. In the glove he finds the receipt and goes on one last search to find the woman he met once, but immediately felt attraction for. During this time Sara decides she wants to go with her friend back to New York before she gets married. John follows clues which lead him to more clues to find where Sara may have lived while she was there years ago, leading him back to the coffee shop they met that first evening. Only this time, the shop next to it is a bridal shop, which he sees as a sign that he is supposed to marry the woman he is with currently. Are there times when we believe in fate or signs to lead we to make decisions? Consider when those decisions come from simple circumstances that we interpret as a sign. Is there such a thing as fate?

At John's wedding rehearsal, he is resigned to never find Sara, but as a wedding gift his fiance gives him a book. It just happens to be the book that Sara wrote her phone number in years ago as a clue to lead John back to her. He breaks off the wedding in the hopes that he will now find her. Sara, on the other hand, is on the airplane preparing to take off for home, when she finds the five dollar bill with Johnathan's phone number, causing her to race off to the wedding to stop it. When she arrives, it has already been called off. They both end up in the same place where they left off years ago and live happily ever after. Are there times when we think we are reading signs, or do we go out of our way to misread or misinterpret what we see as a sign or even create those circumstances intentionally in order to make our decision more justified as if it were meant to be. Do our actions follow what we see as fate, or do we make choices which lead us to believe fate is working for us? How much of our own fate do we control?