LIFE HAPPENS FOR YOU, NOT TO YOU
In London, in April of 2018, I picked the gauntlet of attending Tony Robbins’ flagship seminar. “Unleash the Power Within”. I experienced my Life improve for the better after the four-day workshop. One of the several essential lessons I learned at the seminar was that Life happens for us and not for us. We may call this a law of attraction or brain reticular activating system. When we believe and focus on Life as benevolent, providing us with whatever we need. Life gets easier. But, if we see Life as some vengeful avenger, it will become a veritable hell. Ponder back on your Life, and you’ll see that this has always been true.
Recently I was in the vortex of a choppy life, and suddenly, too many things appeared to be coming about simultaneously. It seemed as though I was being caught off-guard. Recently our dog Coco died after a long and slow decline; I remember making eye contact minutes before his demise; he flashed a winsome look as he blissfully drifted off to heaven. Following this, an overpowering sadness gripped me, and the days of grieving instead of culminating began stacking up. Further, adding to my woes were several other simultaneous occurrences, including an unexpected transfer.
When pain grips us, we can either dwell in it and suffer it or accept it and glimpse the good it has created in our lives. All of them may seem to be awful. But, we must understand that we have been given the pain to serve us and help us tap into the resources we hold and to become the persons we need to become. We usually tend to blame someone for the anguish they have caused in our lives without looking at the good that came out of it. When we decide to blame someone for the mess they have created, we must be ready to give credit for the good that has permeated our lives. My teacher once told me that we should never say “why me”? When bad things happen to us, we don’t pose the same question when good stuff happens to us.
Sometimes, I have noticed things happening when we aren’t living up to our true purpose or capabilities. The Universe then decides to yank us out of our comfort zones and wiggle us up. This awakening is where the opportunity to grow spiritually occurs. It forces us to look within and seek answers for things that seem to be unfolding in our lives. The simple reason is that we can only control our feelings, thoughts, and behaviours because trying to influence others would be akin to controlling the weather. We discover the silver lining if we sincerely surrender to the Universe and seek the answers to the questions.
The Universe or source then starts offering situations and circumstances that foster growth, and hence when we believe that Life happens for us and not to us: we can work miracles at any moment. And we move away from feeling angry, hurt or sad to feeling good. We start recognising the testing moments as a lesson, a trial or an opportunity, so we always win. As we understand our emotional health, we build resilience to cope with so-called bad things positively without the numbing emotions. Contrarily, if we react, we might end up feeling as though the Universe were conspiring against us.
When we develop a feeling that the Universe is conspiring against us, we stay stuck in the same place because our beliefs that we will never have enough, never be competent, be successful or confident starts manifesting as reality. But once we flip the idea that we have everything we need, our Life dramatically changes; we become successful and receive everything we need in abundance. Further, when things happen, the choice of labelling the situation we are in is entirely up to us; we can look at a half-filled glass of water as half full or half empty. We can either dwell on the disaster or find the silver lining. Stepping back and seeing the big picture is imperative because it can help us zoom out and detach ourselves from feeling all-wound up.
Besides, Eleanor Roosevelt once remarked that “No one can make one feel inferior without one’s consent.” How people treat an individual is their Karma, and how the individual reacts is his Karma. We cannot go about littering negativity and wonder why Life is so crummy-. When we become capable of embracing change, everything will start to happen for us, as we will ride the wave and receive the best in Life.
We don’t always understand why things happen the way they do, but when we gain some space, time, and perspective and reflect on the significant events of our lives, we can see how the Universe led us there If we get lucky, we can even find moments where we found ourselves exactly where we were supposed to be. In my own Life, I have been able to connect the dots numerous times in my Life. Out of several dots there, I can discern one particular dot that led me into civil services. Had I not fallen into bad company and disgraced myself while pursuing my undergraduate studies in Agriculture at Hyderabad, I would not have forced myself to seek my postgraduate and PhD programs outside Andhra Pradesh. As Delhi happened to be a hub for preparation of civil services exam, pursuing my PhD program at Delhi and my induction into the University quiz team paved the way for my entry into the civil services in September of 1991.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple computer and Pixar animation studio, delivered a powerful commencement address on June 14, 2005, to the graduating class at Stanford University. On lines similar to mine, Jobs elucidated how the nastiest points in his Life-dropping out of college, being overthrown from Apple and contracting cancer-served as portals to a higher level of creativity and insight. The lecture delivered an intimate peek into what inspired this successful, iconic man, and Jobs’s advice is timeless. In the same speech, Jobs also famously said-You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something your gut, destiny, Life, Karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my Life.” Unquote.
Finally, if there were only beautiful sunny days, we would take the sun for granted, but we also need thunderstorms and rains to break the monotony and wash things anew. For instance, if things never went wrong in our lives, we would know when they are going right. If we never experienced loss, how would we experience gain? If we have never been, jilted how would we know how beautiful being perpetually in love feels. We all have to play a part in the game called Life. We will all have things happening in our lives to do the work, explore the silver lining, and never let go of it once we find it.
Source from: epaper/dtnext/chennai/dt:10.10.2021
Dr.K. Jayanth Murali is an IPS Officer belonging to 1991 batch. He is borne on Tamil Nadu cadre. He lives with his family in Chennai, India. He is currently serving the Government of Tamil Nadu as Additional Director General of Police, Idol Wing CID.