When Things Fall Apart
We all have that life we envisioned for ourselves. Whether it is having your career all figured out. Whether it is having the family you imagined. Whether is it having the romantic relationship you dreamed of. Sometimes life doesn’t turn out to be the way we thought it would be. It can be devastating. Damaging. Frustrating. I think that falling apart is part of the plan life has for us, if there’s any plan or destiny at all. Just like death and taxes (that there’s no escape from them), we will all fall apart at some point in our lives.
You see, life is not supposed to be perfect, neither will it ever be. Life is supposed to be a journey in which we get beat up sometimes and then we need to learn how to continue living, even though some days we feel like we have no desire or energy to get out of bed. For instance, I have friends that tell me how frustrated they are at their jobs, and how they feel trapped! There seems to be not escape! Most of us will feel this professional frustration or entrapment. We need to work because we need to pay our bills and support our families, but then we have to deal with the unprofessional behavior of others, and nothing seems to change or happen to these people. There are no repercussions to these people’s behavior! It’s insane! How do we manage this? Or even better, how do we get out? It is not only the fact that we need to pay our bills, but it is also the dedication and investment we have put on our career (for years) that also holds us back into staying or into wanting to remain within that field. But perhaps we should start to put things into perspective and think about all the benefits we get at our job. The pros and cons. How much these weight in comparison to each other?
We have to look at things from the outside and not so much from the inside. Maybe we are just making a situation bigger than it really is. Maybe we are giving too much importance to one specific person and then we get blinded and associate the matter with everyone at work. We sometimes forget to see the big picture. The one thing I have learned is that we need to put everything into perspective. Of course there are other solutions! One solution could be to take a risk! Make that change you fear on doing. Create a strategic plan and make the necessary changes in your professional career. Sometimes a step back can eventually get you 5 steps ahead, but it will require time and sacrifice. What are you willing to sacrifice now to make the necessary changes in your career in order to feel better, more productive, more appreciated, and at peace?
On the other hand, we might have thought that our lives would have taken us to a different place than the one we are at right now. We envisioned a future that never happened. The person we loved the most lied to us, left us without explanation, or used us. Perhaps that person you saw yourself growing old with was not the right person for you. Perhaps we lost a loved one too soon, but that person’s journey came to an end before us, and one day we will go as well. Some things are damaging to a point that we are no longer the same person that we used to be. Sometimes the pain is unbearable. So many sad and unfortunate things, that we never thought of, end up happening to us throughout our lives. Frustrating and sad. But we have to keep on. Somehow, we get to continue living and eventually we get to smile again. For some it takes longer than for others. The time it takes is not important, what matters is that we need to continue living and we have to put things into perspective, and find purpose from within. Sometimes we are just looking at the closed doors for too long than we should and forget that we too can be happy with ourselves and don’t need to have another person to “complete” us. We are whole, we are not half. It will be a bigger mistake to settle for less than you deserve. Again, putting things into perspective can change the way we feel about a particular situation, whether it is painful or frustrating. It is only a matter of time. It is a matter of learning the lessons behind the situation.
Aside of things not going as we plan; we also make mistakes that we really never thought we could ever make! But we do! We are humans! We don’t always make the right decisions because we are more focused on our current situation rather than on looking at the bigger picture. Making mistakes is part of life and nobody carries your mistakes…only you, so we should not be judgmental of other people’s mistakes when we have our own mistakes to carry. People tend to think they have the right to judge just because they would never make “THAT” mistake. But hey! Maybe you won’t make their mistakes either and I am sure they won’t like it if you are the judge of theirs. I say, live, fall, get up, learn, and ignore the judges! Perhaps they need to take a look at the mirror before judging you or anyone else. And if someone hurt you, why do you need to carry that person’s mistake in your head on a daily basis? When we are constantly asking ourselves “why me?”, “why did he cheat on me?”, “why did he lie to me?”, “how could she say those harmful words to me?” we make things personal. It is best to remove the “me” from the equation and see it differently. The fact that someone treated you a certain way, doesn’t mean you have to carry their mistake. Letting go and moving on is a better strategy than torturing ourselves with all these “whys?”. These are questions for the person who made the mistake to answer; not for you to judge or carry. Yes! Sometimes we get a response from a person because we “deserved it”, it’s action and reaction, but if that doesn’t fit in the situation, then perhaps it is a personal thing that the other person needs to work on, and it does not belong in your head. Let others carry their mistakes, you have your own ones to carry.
I believe that everything that happens to us is there to teach us a lesson; to help us grow. Everything happens for a reason, and I don’t know if destiny exists, but when things fall apart it is because the pieces were not matching properly. You cannot force a piece of a puzzle on the wrong place. Our life is our puzzle. We all have different ones, which is what makes us unique. We just need to figure out how to build our puzzle and make the best out of the journey, even when things fall apart.
