Learn the Lesson – One of life’s most perplexing questions is, “Why did that happen?” There we are, minding our own business, and “wham!!!” something happens that shakes our world. Someone leaves us, someone dies, we lose our job, our business goes under, or things happen that we don’t like. We do everything we were told would bring us happiness or abundance, and it doesn’t work. We can’t understand why we are getting what we are getting.
The first element of this puzzle is our motivation. Why did we do what we did? Did we do something that looked nice, but we were hoping that we would get rewarded? Isn’t that what religion is all about? We are told that if we follow the rules, we will be blessed. However, sometimes we follow the rules and we get slammed. What good is religion? The answer is that our motivation will determine the result. If we do something hoping to be rewarded or to be perceived as someone we are not, the result may not be what we want. It does make a difference “why” we do things. If we sacrifice for a greater reward, we may not get the greater reward, and we will be a double loser. However, if we do something with good intentions because we feel fulfilled and blessed, then we feel good about it no matter what the result.
The second element of the puzzle is the lesson. We rarely know the big picture or all the elements of what is swirling around our lives. What we perceive is rarely the big picture and all our calculations are worthless. How do we know what the lesson is? If the events are not what we want, you can assume that the lesson was the opposite of what you wanted. When someone abandons you, the lesson is to learn how to stand on your own. If you are annoyed or frustrated, the lesson is to learn patience. If you feel victimized, the lesson is to take responsibility. If you are experiencing fear, the lesson is to have courage, faith, and trust. If you are not getting the result you want, the lesson is to let go of the results.
One of the most frustrating elements of life is time. Nothing happens in our own time or when we want it. We are a world of instant gratification; we have lost the art of patience. When we get frustrated and impatient, we do things to hurry life along and it usually backfires. I call this “pushing a rope”. It doesn’t work and most of what we wanted to accomplish is left behind. We must slow down and relax. Most of our society is based on instant gratification, especially now that we have the Internet in place.
We have begun to expect everything to happen computer fast, especially finding our “soulmate.” However, maybe your soul mate has some polishing required before you would like them, and you must wait until they are ready. It is often difficult to accept that the universe does not happen on our time clock. We must have faith and trust that our divine powers are rearranging the universe to make it right for us. Sometimes, it just takes longer than we want.
We can experience life as exciting and fun or as difficult and hard. The same conditions can create either experience. The trick is to learn to have fun when we are not getting what we want. I go back to the old saying, “Success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you get.” We are afraid that we will lose out on the good stuff, and we want to take control. Unfortunately, when we try to take control, the train runs off the tracks. What we can’t control must be released. We must let go of everything. The only thing we can control is how we feel about what is happening around us. So why not feel happy even though we are not getting what we want? If we feel negative, all we are doing is making ourselves miserable. Where is the fun in that?
Just because we don’t get what we want doesn’t mean that we did anything wrong. It may be that we did everything right and we will be a more conscious person because of the experience. Sometimes, being naïve and trusting doesn’t mean that we don’t have the responsibility of using our talents to analyze a situation and saying “no.” Cult leaders and gurus have made and lost other people’s fortunes this way. We can’t blame anyone else for making unwise decisions; that is our karma.
It may be a profitable exercise to review all the decisions you would never make again. What would you not do again, be greedy, take an unwise risk, disempower yourself, go against your intuition? Sometimes the pearl of the lesson is buried under layers of bullshit that continue to cause problems in life. This is where we must be honest and quit lying to ourselves if we are going to get to the truth and the cause of our circumstances. Don’t beat yourself up; there are lots of people who will do that for you.
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