Is Life Our Real Classroom?
Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay
As joyous as moments in life can be, the overall journey is hard. Even self-described optimists who claim they’ve had an incredibly blessed existence will admit that life has a way of testing us. Life is a series of ups and downs that ebb and flow around periods of status quo and stability. How we long for those upward swings when life seems wonderful. Blissful and successful. Who wouldn’t want to ride that wave into the future, hoping that good times last forever? Happiness feels good. Period. But can we truly appreciate happiness and success if we haven’t experienced sadness and failure?
Don’t we learn more from the things that cause us pain?
Pain helps us develop a better understanding of what’s important, who matters, and where our hearts lie. It helps us find our purpose, teaches us to prioritize, and lends us the gift of better relationships, because if we have not suffered ourselves, how can we truly understand and empathize with those who have fallen? Without death, we cannot truly understand the wonder of life. Hard times teach us to be grateful when things are good.
Is our entire existence a test?
A physician recently told me that she believes Earth is just a giant classroom and the important lessons we need to learn are not found in schools. Instead, they are found as we make our way through life, and how we navigate it shapes us into who we are. Is that the point? Are roadblocks and blessings meant to mold and transform us?
Is life predestined? Do we have free will? Or is it both?
My mother used to say that when things fall into place, it’s a sign that it was meant to be. Likewise, if you keep hitting a wall, you need to recalculate your route because it isn’t the right one. But is it the wrong route, or does a roadblock tell us that we need to go back because we haven’t yet understood the point? We haven’t learned the lesson. That theory seems to indicate that life is predetermined, and we don’t have free will, but we do have free will. We can take any path we want, but how does it turn out? Will we eventually reach our goal? At what cost? How much time will be lost by not seeing and listening to the signs?
There are so many theories about life.
Some believe that our souls live through many lifetimes, each one teaching a valuable lesson along our path to enlightenment. If that’s true, are the roadblocks and blessings placed in our paths meant to push us in a direction, or evaluate how we handle them, and help determine if we’re ready for the next step? To ascend to the next level?
Are we supposed to simply survive life, or are we meant to evolve?
Until next time,
Jean
AKA The Strategic Chicken
-Making life’s journey one strategic step at a time
