so often the worst things that happen to you in this life....given some time can come to be seen as the best things. Maybe the best is not the correct wording? but what i'm getting at is ... even the traumatic events that happen to a person can eventually be seen to have taken that persons life in a direction that it would not have otherwise ended up.
Overcoming these challenges make us who we are...and often make us better, stronger, more resilient, more empathetic.
So to take this into the tangible...i'll explain it in terms of my story. At 18 i was accepted into an exchange program and was headed off to live in poland for a year. i stopped in to England on the way to my exchange to visit with family i have up in Newcastle. While there my cousin and i were in a serious car accident. I fracture 4 vertebra, broke my leg and lost some teeth. Not fun... 3 spinal surgeries and months of recovery....i found myself a 20 year old trying to figure out who this new injured me was.
This is not a pity party...in fact while it was a lot of suffering, then through to now....i would never have it any other way. I was so lucky to have had this happen to me. It made me aware of how fragile our life is....it made me realize that we get just this one life and we must actually live it. I am now 40 and i have been to 39 countries....(i started playing this game about 10 years ago that i wanted to always to have been to as many countries as my age)
I would never have been so obsessed with going, doing, meeting, sharing and knowing so many places and cultures.
Without the traumatic car accident i think i would probs be watching a football game and not looking forward to going to my 9-5 job the next morning. Instead i was no longer afraid of what life was going to throw at me... i eagerly went toward all that life had to throw at me.
When something shitty happens to us in this life...we must go through the stages of dealing with it...pain, self pity, recovery, sadness...but after some time and space....we need to see the opportunity in this shitty thing. We need to find all the learning, all the ways it has shaped and served us.... and to go through all the doors and potential that open up. For me....there is really only 2 ways to go with these life smacks that hit us all in so many different ways .... we can dwell, be bitter, dwindle and shrink within our existence or we can overcome and become grateful, find meaning, find the path to break through and grow within our existence.
This is how i have come to a place where i realize that i Suffer so Lucky.