“Someday, everything will make perfect sense. So, for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears, be strong and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason.” (John Mayer)
I often find myself wishing I could go back in time to “do things” all over again in a different way. I’m definitely one who has played those head games quite a bit with myself asking “What if I had done ‘that’ in ‘this’ way instead?” Yes, I’m absolutely guilty of regularly wishing I could go back to my childhood knowing what I know now, so that maybe I could do things better. But, what if everything truly did happen as it was meant to? What if even I could go back in time and choose different paths, that I still ended up here at the very same point I am now, with the very same lessons learned? Maybe all the lessons I was meant to learn in this life were unavoidable no matter what I did?
I’ve watched plenty of time travel movies that have shown various points of views of people who pursued different paths than the ones they originally chose once they went back in time. What’s ironic about all of them is that life still got out of control at some point and sometimes even worse than before, until the same lessons got learned. The message was always the same in all those movies, that things were meant to happen as they did, that everything happens for a reason.
I know! That is such a hard concept to swallow!!!
I think about my life of addiction, my parent’s tragic deaths, my countless failed relationships, my failed business that led to so much financial loss, my many health issues, and well basically one poor choice after another, where each led to nothing but one more bout of pain and suffering after another.
Could I have lived a life without addiction? Could my father’s suicide and my mother’s tragic drunken fall down the stairs been prevented? Could I have avoided all those miserable partnerships and pursued the healthier ones I kept avoiding? Could I have skirted financial disaster by never buying the bed and breakfast I did? And the biggest question I face almost constantly these days…Could my present health issues that I’ve battled for 10 years now been totally prevented?
When I meditate on this, my Spirit says no. Because maybe if I didn’t pick up alcohol and drugs, I would have still succumbed to some other addiction. Maybe if I had been there more for my father or mother in their final weeks, it only would have bought them a few more? Maybe if I had avoided those painful relationships, I only would have fallen into other painful ones instead? Maybe if I had told my ex-partner that I didn’t want to do his Bed and Breakfast dream, I only would have invested in some other financial disaster instead? And maybe, just maybe, all this dam pain I continue to face in my body, would still have happened, no matter what I did, because it like everything else had to happen for me to learn what I have and to become that what I’ve become thus far.
I’m a better person because today because of all of these things from my past. I’m more capable and desiring to help others from a place of selflessness now, more unconditionally loving to the masses, and more compassionate and kinder to all, all because of the difficult past I’ve experienced. While my ego has often tried to convince me that it could have handled things differently and made my life far easier to become those things, the irony is that it was my ego that led me down all those crazy paths in the first place.
So, maybe, just maybe, everything really does happen as it’s meant to, that no matter what paths we take in life, that we are always going to be led to learn the same lessons we were always meant to learn? And maybe, if we all could just get out of our egos for a mere minute or two, we might just be able to see how amazing we all are right here, right now, all because of having gone through all that we did.
Dear God, help me to lovingly reflect upon my past, but never fall prey to the illusion that I could have done things better. Help me accept that everything truly happens as it’s meant to for me to become that which You always planned for me to become…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
