“One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.”

Great discoveries happen unexpectedly. Perhaps sometimes you need to get lost in order to discover. Or like Sir Alexander Fleming did – go on vacation. Two weeks long. For when he returned, he changed the course of history. What he found was that while he was gone, a mold had developed on an accidentally contaminated staphylococcus culture plate and that it had prevented the growth of the bacteria. This was in fact the first naturally occurring antibiotic ever to be discovered and is one of the most widely used today. It got the name Penicillin. What a chance.

Let us not forget that throughout history, the major killer in wars had been infection rather than battle injuries. Therefore, to say that the discovery of penicillin marked a true turning point in human history would be an understatement. Thank you mold for saving millions of lives. And thank you, Sir Fleming, for going on that vacation.

Penicillin is 92 years old this year and that is very young if we consider how old humankind actually is. If only we had it earlier.

If you think about it, vacations are always good. Sometimes they can even have unexpected consequences. World-changing.

All things remarkable have surprisingly humble beginnings.

Dwell on that.