How is it that I find it so easy to tell someone grappling with a problem, even consequential and dire ones, that “It’s going to be ok.” If questioned as to how I know it’ll be fine, my answer is a cocky, “I don’t, but trust me; it’ll be fine”; or “I just do (know).”
I genuinely believe that life has a way of working itself out; typically in unpredictable or unanticipated ways and, usually, not to our satisfaction. Nevertheless, it sort of concludes.
This despite knowing from personal experience that problems are never simple, nor single-faceted, they’re always multi-layered and complicated.
But as an outsider, I’m neither emotionally invested in the problem nor in the outcome, and although I might not voice it, it does cross my mind that it isn’t as big a deal as the person is making it out to be.
By which, I conveniently overlook that, as a third party, I’m neither in a position to comprehend the complete picture nor how far-reaching their role is in the consequences.
So, it’s easy to flippantly say, “let it go and take it easy”, which is being inconsiderate to the person who is overwhelmed and in an overthinking loop; incapable of stepping back to look at the situation rationally and dispassionately.
However, what’s really bizarre is when the shoe is on the other foot, and I’m the one in distress and super upset, when it feels the universe is set against me and doors are shutting in my face, and then, to have those very words repeated back to me by someone…
I get miffed and livid with anger.
They ring hollow and sound almost ludicrous, because whoever is saying them hasn’t a clue about my misfortune, which, to me, is earth-shattering and for it to be pooh-poohed away so lightly is really hurtful.
Also, knowing my luck, and with a penchant to amplify and magnify drama, I’m worried sick that it could be just the beginning—a harbinger of worse, yet to come.
Also, as is the case in most problems, problems are rarely new, but usually something that’s been simmering somewhere in the background from sometime past, but often left unattended until it surfaces to the forefront.
They usually start small. Just a tiny knot in a large tapestry of one’s life, woven into which are complicated factors, entwined with people, both significant and not, financial conditions, health, relationships, family pressure, and obligations.
Also spread across the tapestry, are the tangled emotional threads of earlier failures, wrong decisions, mistakes made, and further snarled with a gamut of memories of letting oneself and others down.
Faith in one’s own decision-making skills and support from others, and in Fate itself, can also be inundated with skepticism and apprehensiveness.
The lucidity needed to see a possible solution is congested with the what-ifs and the buts of the worst-case scenario, which are more real in our heads than in actuality.
While the problems of others seem trivial, our own issues loom larger than they really are.
We are habituated to blow every small thing out of proportion and tend to expect the worst of outcomes, which, instead of helping us “be prepared to face the worst”, actually act as a hindrance and block the mind from seeing beyond the hurdle, for which there’s always a solution.
Maybe not the one we are looking for, or the outcome we’d hoped for, but it will work itself out.
Whatever may be our purpose in life, none of us is spared or free from problems, to which spiritual wisdom states, “Stop worrying about how it will happen. Just know that it will. The right doors will open, the right people will enter, and the right opportunities will find you. Stay patient, stay open, and let the magic unfold in divine timing.”
Maybe, not as we expected it to be, but as it should be.