Why 'the shortest distance between two points might be three decades'

There’s a question I find myself asking more often these days: are what seem like serendipities actually synchronicities awaiting action?

I’m not talking about luck. Luck arrives uninvited. Synchronicity requires awareness. It appears quietly—a conversation overheard, an unexpected invitation, a chance opportunity—and asks whether you’ll leave the comfortable path and maybe discover something great at the end.

Whenever the universe seems to call, I answer: “Yes!”

It has carried me farther than any carefully constructed five-year plan ever could.

I now live on the Croatian island of Brac, restoring a 250-year-old stone house while helping introduce pickleball to a country where most people had never heard of the sport just a few years ago.

Four people stand on a pickleball court
Provided The inaugural game on the new pickleball court in the village of Milna.

None of this was on my résumé, or anywhere on my bucket list. It is simply where a lifetime of saying yes has led.

Looking back, I realize this pattern began long before Croatia.

Read the full Chime In column by Penny Smith Eifrig ’90 on the Cornellians website. 

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Person in red sheilding eyes; a stone house behind
Provided Penny Smith Eifrig ’90 now owns the home in Lozisca