One reason why ‘Everything Happens For A Reason’

Scene:  I hop in the shower and immediately start singing like President Obama. After a few bars I transition to my other world and begin practicing for my upcoming show.  My shower podcast sounds great and as I’m talking to my audience about how we’re all affirmed through our interactions with each other, I’m finishing a quick reference to social anthropologist David Brooks, and Freakonomics’ Stephen Levitt when it hits me.

Inside my then stream of consciousness:

“We’re consistently affirmed in our identities by our human interactions. We’re validated and challenged by these interactions. They’re the reason we develop in our self understanding.  Reason…reason… everything happens for a reason.  “Everything happens for a reason.”  Such a simple mantra or belief. One that’s sustained even the most troubled soul.  When we’re going through the pain, how do we know the ‘reason’? Will we ever?”

It hit me while I was in the shower.

I’ve become re-acquainted with a deeper meaning within the saying “Everything Happens for a Reason,” and it’s almost more encouraging to me than one of my mother’s hugs.

It’s this: My ability to encourage someone through the vulnerable process of sharing my OWN experiences is reason enough for me to have gone through it.

I’ve been heart-broken, lost a job, been jealous of friends, grappled with faith and the list goes on. Every time I can encourage someone who’s going through similar situations I’m realizing more purpose for my life. I didn’t go through all that stuff just for the pain. Or even to expand my personal library of life lessons.  Shouldn’t I loan a lesson to a friend sometime? I went through (go through) my trials  in hopes of being an example to someone else.   Some people I’ve already encouraged and some I’ve yet to meet.  Sharing my story or affirming someone’s current struggle by describing the hope on the other side, leads me to discover more reason in why “Everything Happens for a Reason.”

My joys aren’t my own. My struggles aren’t my own.  My heartbreak isn’t my own. When I get through it (which I will) I can help someone else do the same. And that’s reason enough.

“We’re able to function in a social world because we partially permeate each other’s minds and understand–some people more, some people less. Human beings understand others in themselves, and they form themselves by reenacting the internal processes they pick up from others.”   -David Brooks (The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement)

Are you struggling to find meaning and purpose in your pain? Consider the appropriate time and person to share it with.  They just might need you, and you specifically. Your story has the power to change someone’s life trajectory.  Perhaps that’s  all the reason you need.

Have you found purpose on your path to overcoming pain?

Still not sure?

Share with the Word Up, Haay family. 

P.S. Coming soon! Word Up, Haay podcasts. *and the crowd goes wild*