“It wasn’t meant to be”

“Maybe this was the purpose of that experience”

Fate. It’s in our everyday language as we try to make sense of our experience of the world. For some, we take comfort in the idea of a grand plan in which our lives fit into. For others, there is no comfort in this idea as we feel like a pawn in a play we no nothing about.

Searching for meaning and purpose in negative experiences is a normal human behaviour; the intensity of the search is often correlates with the perceived negativity of the experience.

And yet, often meaning is made through the choices of we make about what to do next. Positive can come from negative experiences, but we do need to take further steps if the positive is going to have a chance to happen. We can’t change the past; we can choose what to do next.

Change is about loss, but also about growth and new things. Whether it is all fate, it is impossible to know in this life, so perhaps it’s best to assume we can influence the future and take the next step.

Photo by James Lee