Joy and triumphs bring us lessons. Pain and sadness bring us lessons. If both life extremes bring us something valid to learn and if they grow us as individuals, then why can't we just accept them as such?
Why do we as humans find it difficult to grasp the real meaning in all life situations?
We only seem to find meaning when good things happen.
Here are two examples:
You finally buy or build your own house—you get full of elation and credit yourself with hard work and resilience and good money management, and you tell others that lesson.
You lose your job. You blame it on your boss, on the organization, on your coworkers, sometimes even the government and the world for being unjust because of who we are.
But we forget what our role was in the firing. What did I do wrong in my job? Could it be all the frequent tardiness to work? Perhaps it was because of using my cell phone at work? Or the lack of customer skills I portrayed?
Every experience we go through has meaning. Every life situation has a purpose and a reason.
If everything that happened to us was good and lovely, how would we learn lessons, grow, and become better? How would we become more resilient, more determined, and more optimistic?
The trait of optimism is developed through failing and then winning again.
If you don't fail at things first, or work hard and put in everything you can to succeed, you will not be an optimist. You will just remain complacent, self-righteous, and self-centered.
If you visit your doctor and you get a report that your cholesterol is high, or your blood pressure is high, or you're developing pre-diabetes—that experience means you have to make changes in your lifestyle.
If you lose a loved one, that experience is a reminder no one is here forever, and you must live your life better. We must make the best of the time we are granted every single day.
If you miss your flight, you'd better wake up earlier and plan your time more efficiently next time.
If you fail your exams, study harder. It's you, not the professor's fault.
If you get pregnant out of wedlock once, that experience is teaching you to abstain from sex or use birth control and avoid having more precious kids outside of a stable home.
If you get into debt, watch your spending and drop the materialism.
The list goes on and on. Every experience has a meaning. Every experience has a lesson.
And the lesson is for you. Not for the other person.
This is common in relationships—friends and marriages and work situations (as described above with a loss of job).
If you get a divorce, look for the lessons you gained from the marriage and the divorce process itself. Don't point fingers. You will only grow as an individual, learn good lessons, and flourish in the future if you focus on what you learned.
If all you're ranting about is what the other person did to you, you will remain stuck, depressed, unhappy, demoralized, and in bondage.
Just ask yourself this: "What does this experience mean for me?" And the answers will come rushing in. Remember to write them in your journal as they come to you. You'll need to read them over and over to continue your life growth.
May we become permanently happy by learning lessons from all our experiences.