There’s a lot more room for acceptance of your current circumstances when you view it as a lesson.
Lessons inherently give value – when your mindset is tuned into a channel where you can comprehend your circumstance in a healthy way, not as something that is happening to you, rather, something that you are a part of, it opens your eyes up to the seeds of growth to be sown.
I’m not discounting the fact that there are unjust things that happen to all of us. It happens – and majority of the time, our life has to continue. It’s how we unpack the circumstances we are a part of that delineates the future that we move towards.
When Circumstances Happen To Us
In the mindset of circumstances happening to us, we tend to focus more on the external forces that inevitably are out of our control. This lack of control reinforces our views that perhaps we weren’t good enough to make things go the way we wanted them to go. It breeds resentment – for yourself and for others.
You might think to yourself “if only I could have done this better, maybe things would have turned out differently.” Yes, maybe – but I like to trust the fact that in most circumstances in life, we are already trying our best. Whether or not circumstances turn out in our favour is up to how the universe calculates all of the given variables.
On the same side of the coin, you might resent others for not being compassionate or gentle enough. You question their real intentions – maybe they were out to get you this whole time. Problem is, if they were, how would you be able to really know? That would be a fruitless hypothetical endeavour. An absolute energy drain. And what would you do if you were able to find out that was indeed the truth? The situation has come and past – you are still left in the same place.
We Are A Part Of Our Circumstances
Viewing circumstances as something that we are a part of, the dynamics of our role towards the people involved, as well as the situation itself, shifts. We no longer view life through the lens of victimhood. All circumstances are a chance for us to exercise our knowledge and wisdom gained from our past experiences. We acknowledge that whatever newness any circumstance throws at us – we can approach with a healthy balance of trepidation and curiosity. After all, no new discoveries are made in the zone of safety. This includes self-discovery.
“Difficult situations will still be difficult. It’s the way we process it that dictates how we move forward in life.”
I’d like to iterate the fact that times can get tough. So tough you might think that the universe is conspiring against you. It’s not. Life’s bitterness is a matter of perspective, and difficult situations will always be difficult to deal with. It’s the way we choose to process it that dictates how we move forward. When you have the mental space to zoom out enough – outside of your individual bubble of existence, you can come to recognize that there are definitely other people in this world who have experienced something similar. There is power in recognizing that “my situation isn’t specific to me.”
Reframing Our Understanding Of Lessons
Society has framed the concept of lessons for us as something that is difficult – something that is taught and learned through toughness. How far from the truth that idea is! There are lessons in fragility, in love, in happiness, in joy. Likewise, there are lessons in lethargy, apathy, anger, fear, and frustration.
In order to receive the gift of life’s circumstances as lessons, we need to unlearn our classical understanding of what lessons are. They are not tied to our idea of academics and grades. There is no competition in understanding the lesson faster than others. It is not something we are forced to learn because it is apart of our curriculum.
Life’s lessons are simply something we can learn from to gain perspective. That’s it. Learning is impartial to what our ego wants to hear. It’s our ego that frames a given lesson as something that may or may not be devastating to our identity.
Lessons can come in the form of something fun and light hearted. Perhaps you’ve been so encapsulated in your work and goals, you’ve forgotten how to let go and be in the moment. Now you’re having fun, and the lesson was to hit pause on your life’s material goals. You have just met your current circumstance’s great equalizer in the form of fun! It has given you renewed perspective on taking care of yourself.
Room For Growth
“If we’re not expanding, we’re contracting. There is no in between.”
Growing as an individual can be tough at times. Remember that you’re not alone. Everybody on this planet is growing at their own individual pace. However, the active choice of becoming better has a bit of a cost: as long as you are not complacent in seeking what is true to you, life will keep throwing circumstances at you in order to challenge your level of understanding and awareness. There is no end – we are finite beings living within an infinite universe. Within the limited time that we have here, the possibilities truly are endless.
I’ve recently discovered this space in life where I can choose what kind of lessons I’d like to pursue. I’m certainly not mistaking this for me being in control of my circumstances. Rather, I understand that the refractory period for me to choose whether or not I want to engage with any given circumstance has lengthened. Not in the sense of time, but rather, the knowledge and wisdom distilled from previous life lessons has inserted themselves between the gaps of my decision making.
It’s sort of like if a decision to be made has to pass through a mechanism with filters, and where there should be filters are instead empty cartridges – the decision to be made would be done so in a perfunctory manner.
The way I once pursued my circumstances were much more reactionary as I lacked the filters that would ‘clean’ up my reaction process. In turn, the way those reactions were made would directly dictate how I would decide to move forward with my circumstances.
Circumstance is presented. Reaction. Reasoning for reaction. Decision.
A bit jumbled up, and more importantly, there is no thought between circumstance and reaction.
Double Slit Experiment
I met a man by the name of Michael Ritchie who broke down this concept of reactionary decision making in a fairly profound way, using the double slit experiment and quantum theory as an example.
For those who aren’t familiar, it’s where light can be both particle and wave, but once observed, it only takes on a single characteristic.
“This is an inherent truth of the universe – that it functions on probability,” he said.
Suppose a circumstance or condition is presented to you – before you react, all reactions are possible (to continue on with the analogy, at this point light can still be both particle and/or wave). However, the moment you react (choose to observe light’s characteristic), most other possible reactions/decisions that could have been made in response to a circumstance is no longer available – the choices spread among the multiverse start to collapse (now light is either/or).
The further, you choose to go down this decision path, the less choice there is for you to make, to the point that sometimes you are only left with one or two options.
“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance. You have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else… Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life.”
Hunter S. Thompson
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