By Anaiya Patel

Randomness is often viewed as a flaw, barrier, or obstacle as it’s a departure from order or a disruption of the expected path. It strays away from expectations resulting in various circumstances. But randomness is so much more than that, it’s a source of beauty, inspiration, and transformation. Its value lies not in its lack of structure, but in its ability to reveal new forms of meaning.

Shanzay Khalid (11) describes, “The beauty of random things is heavily influenced by a person’s emotions and sentimental things that hold value for them.” To put it simply, it’s up to you whether something is meaningful, significant, and precious. One man’s trash is another’s treasure. Shanzay adds, “It all depends on what holds more value to that person and what they have experience with.”

To romanticize life means to intentionally notice, appreciate, and find beauty in ordinary moments. It’s like choosing to see your everyday experiences through a softer, more meaningful lens. Like looking at life through rose colored glasses. Randomness goes hand in hand with romanticization.

Randomness is everywhere. I mean nature is random. Life is random, we ourselves are random and the first step to romanticize your life is by letting go of the constraints that society places upon us and stepping out of the box of the pressure to be, say, live, a certain way. You can’t escape it, fight it, or change it, so why not embrace it?

Nyla Turner (10) says, “The beauty of randomness could be anything from meeting new people and making new friends, finding a new interest going to some place you haven’t been before, discovering a new food you haven’t tried before, etc.”

Nature itself thrives on randomness. The branching of trees, the formation of clouds, the swirl of galaxies—these are not the results of rigid arrangements but of organic processes shaped by chance.

So the question is how can randomness contribute to the romanticization of life? Romanticizing life means treating small moments as special and finding joy in things you might normally overlook. The great thing about romanticizing your life is that it doesn’t have to be a big, dramatic change. It can be whatever works best for you, because it’s your life. You can start with small steps and slowly build your way up to bigger things. Shanzay goes on to say, “When finding sentiment in random things, someone can romanticize experiences throughout their life easily through their own emotions and priorities. Internal decisions and actions made based on a will can be reasoned through a certain mindset or objective based on how the person chooses to romanticize it.”

In human life, randomness fuels creativity. Serendipity has guided many discoveries: a scientist stumbling upon a new phenomenon, an artist finding inspiration from a mistake, or two strangers meeting by chance to form a lifelong connection. These moments cannot be planned or engineered; they arrive unannounced but leave lasting impact. 

It’s important to make time for yourself and to spread your wings as you grow, learn, and mature into the human being you want to be. For example, Nyla says that she used to read a lot before she came to high school but now that she is high school she doesn’t read as often as she’d like so she decided to change and switch it by listening to audiobooks in order to continue enjoying her hobbies.

Randomness also teaches resilience. When outcomes are uncertain, we adapt, explore, and learn flexibility. It pushes us to widen our comfort zones, embrace change, and find meaning in the unexpected. Randomness broadens our horizons and opens up new doors. Life doesn’t have to feel like a rigid script but rather more like an unfolding story and randomness acts as a gift, instead of a disruption.

While we humans often seek order and predictability, embracing randomness can lead us to new discoveries, opportunities, and a deeper appreciation for the chaos that surrounds us.  Nyla says, I have felt like I need to do things a certain way life solving a math problem using a specific route even if I have figured out something else.” Nyla describes society like a cage, and you are a bird. She feels like at times that societal expectations and norms constrict her like she is locked up in a cage and she wants to be set free and fly wherever she wants or in other words be whoever she wants to be.

Nyla adds that she feels like a good way to unlearn the hive mindset is to step back and take a break from social media like TikTok. She finds that trends have led to a superficial evironments due to consumerism and obsessions in emulating what is considered to be cool but the reality is that you aren’t going to be to love your life when you are trying to love everybody else’s. Younger generations exposed to trends on TikTok are especially susceptible as they are extremely impressionable and influenced by what they see around them. This may lead them down a rabbit hole of following the latest trends even if it may not be in their best interest. This creates a harmful environment and diminishes healthier ones that are more accepting to differences.

In the end, randomness plays an important role in romanticizing life because if everything was the same, everyone did the same things, had the same things, talked the same way, ate, drank, slept, played, and walked the same way then life wouldn’t be beautiful because beauty is found in randomness.