Understanding "why?"

I have some friends who are experiencing times of trials. One is going through a nasty divorce, another is helping his 25 year old son battle cancer, a third is trying to find peace in a time of financial difficulty. All of them have asked to some degree, "Why me?" One of them expressed anger or frustration with God, but I'm sure that the others feel it and have just said nothing to me about it. I have asked the same question myself at times, or some variation like "What have I done to deserve this?", "Why is this happening to me?", or, my personal self-pity favorite, "Why am I going through this while others who are not as good as me aren't?" I'm sure these questions look familiar to you all, since I bet you've asked them yourself at one time or another. Well, I may have an answer for you.

I won't ascribe this answer to God necessarily, although I do believe in Him and that He has a plan for us. We are the sum of our experiences and our reactions to them. We have been given the infinite capacity to process and to learn, if we choose to. Most of the truly effective learning we do is done in a struggle against adversity- sad but true. What we choose to learn from an experience is entirely up to us. We can choose to take away a positive or constructive lesson, or we can choose to take an experience and turn it into a justification for our prejudices and negative thoughts.

Why should we go through life as if it is nothing but one big time of trial. When we look for and find the negative lessons in life, we lose the perspective to recognize even the good times. Life is meant to be lived, good times and bad. It is up to us to decide how much of our lives is filled with bad times and just how bad they are. If we take the view that life is a continual learning experience and place the lessons of the day into the larger framework of our entire lives, even the worst of experiences is a blip on the radar. It is only one moment of many and we can choose to give it meaning by allowing it to drag us down or by allowing it to help us learn and grow.

The meaning of your life is not summed up today, it is summed up the day that you die. Use every day and every experience to help you on your journey of becoming who you are, who you are meant to be. Let them teach you constructive lessons and insights into how you relate to the world and what you can do to better make your mark in it. Live for your entire life, not just the sporadic moments of happiness. If those moments are the only ones that you allow to teach you anything, then how much knowledge and understanding are you letting pass you by?