"I had to make myself available to the possibilities that would move me along toward an honorable goal, whatever that is. Whether it's going to be your career, whether it's going to be your relationship or whatever, and the way that I did it was by, I tried to make myself vulnerable, intentionally vulnerable.

Physically, and as much as possible, emotionally — because that leaves you open to the delight and the magic of possibility. If you fear not, if you're too comfortable, if you've made yourself invulnerable, you've built sort of, you know, a comfortable blockade or palisade around you, I think you're going to miss out on some of these possibilities that float by, that other people may attribute to serendipity, but may or may not be serendipitous. ...

"So my parting advice would be, make yourself vulnerable to change, to discomfort, to the unexpected. And in fact, embrace it. You'll find that you may not always get what you're looking for, but in the end, you'll look back and see that everything eventually adds up to something."

Paul Salopek
Journalist