Everything Happens For A Reason And You Take The Good From It
February 9th, 2007 by Alan YuI’m currently in the midst of helping a person to get a personal project of his going as his main reason for not being able to do so is that a past experience is holding him back from having confidence in doing it and that it is probably going to happen again. Many times when something happens in our lives that affect us negatively in a big way most people tend to take the easy road and lean towards lingering on to the event by focusing on how bad their situation is. They then grudgingly live by that and it’s almost as if they want to remain that way to prove some kind of point such as they have no control of anything and that it is pointless to try. Why do people do that?
In my opinion and even from my personal experiences, even negative experiences often have some kind of important wisdom that you should take from it to help you in whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish. In that sense, a bad experience is really something good in disguise and it’s up to you to reveal that. A very typical example that I hear a lot in business is that a person starting out gets completely frustrated as it seems like every vendor/supplier he works with ends up not providing him with what he wanted and so there is no point in trying anymore.
That is the easy thing to do by simply looking at the event from a negative perspective as if it didn’t help you at all. It also creates a false belief that it’s always the other person’s fault. But really, even with that example you can find something good out of it. For example, that could be a lesson for you to thoroughly write down what you are looking for in the future and to create a contract agreement to prevent any surprises on what was said before. If you think about it, it’s a great thing that you learned to do that now as oppose later when you have to do something bigger which could potentially cause you to lose a lot more.
Another example that was said to me before to try and debunk this way of thinking was with a made up scenario on how I should pretend that the industry one was in has been consistently going downhill as virtually everyone has been forced to close down or downsize in a big way. How can one see a positive in that you say? While it is an unfortunate event, is it really that difficult to see the positives that can come out of it? For example, if everyone was forced to close down their business but there would obviously still be some demand for whatever it is that you offered, this can be a good thing as that means everyone including your bigger competitors before now have to start from scratch as well to adapt to the new circumstances which places you in a great position in capturing more of the market share. Is that really a bad thing in the long run for you?
I personally strongly believe that everything happens for a good reason as it is in some way helping you to achieve what you are trying to do in life. That doesn’t mean that you should take this in some kind of goofy direct way either such as if you fell down and scraped your hands you then say something like “I was told things happen for a reason and so it’s good that I am injured now”. The bottom line is if you transform your way of thinking in trying to take the positives in a situation that looks bad it can often lead to better things.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Mr Yu,
I have to disagree with you about the reason thing. I think things just happen. I went leukemia at age six. There is no known cause that I know of yet. My stepfather suffered a heart attack, but he survived it. My stepbrother got beaten up for an Ipod. Explain it to me.
February 28th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Hi Meredith,
It’s okay if you disagree with my points as this world would be a boring place if everyone thought the exact same. For your examples, in my opinion you are looking at them in a direct way such as with my example of someone scraping their hands. Keep in mind this is entirely my opinion as I don’t exactly know your life that well or what your goals are, but here are my thoughts with your examples:
Leukemia: So obviously it is an unpleasant thing. Has this affected your attitude in life or for others does it discourage them from doing certain things? For example, maybe you are the strong one and despite having this you can inspire people to live life to its fullest potential. We have all read stories where people say have the most tragic accident or unfortunate health issue yet you still see them take a pro active role when it comes to life which helps to get millions of others back on their feet as well. Would that still be a bad thing entirely?
Heart Attack: Again, tragic event but as you mentioned he survived. In many cases people often take their friends or family members for granted. Who hasn’t heard of stories where people say things like “I wish I would have spent more time with him/her when I had the chance”. As an example, this could be a way to open everyone’s eyes and to get everyone together more closely.
iPod Issue: I can actually see a lot of examples with this that might not necessarily be true for your stepbrother but can make sense. One can learn maybe where that is a bad neighborhood which will inspire you to do something to clean it up before something worse happens, don’t be so open in exposing to others that you are carrying an expensive item around as imagine having something worth $1000 instead and attracting even worse people or maybe it’s a sign that he needs to better prepare himself physically/mentally for these types of situations such as with a self defense class which he may have never considered before.
In my view those are all perfectly legitimate and realistic examples. Also keep in mind that this isn’t suppose to be like some mystical way of thinking but rather the point is everyone can do so much more for themselves by not trying to constantly think of how miserable or negative something is but rather learning from obstacles and challenges to make yourself or the people around you stronger. If you still don’t believe that is the case and think that things just happen and you are contempt with your current lifestyle as it is going great and all, then more power to you.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:05 am
Hi Alan Yu
I strongly agree with you. but disagree for these lines….
‘That doesn’t mean that you should take this in some kind of goofy direct way either such as if you fell down and scraped your hands you then say something like “I was told things happen for a reason and so it’s good that I am injured now”’.
because even from that we may learn to walk carefully without hurting another time. or atleast while coming to the same place again we will think that we should walk carefully… so even a small thing is for good. i belive.