Why is this happening to me?

Every adult in this world must have asked this question at least once in their lifetime. Why me? Why did this happen to me?  When there is a deviation in our daily life, when adversity hits us, the first thought that comes to mind is this phrase. What follows is a series of self-recrimination. What did I do wrong? For what am I getting this punishment? What could have been done differently to avoid this?

No wonder I had these thoughts several times in my life. Few of them I remember quite clearly. When I was a teenager, I faced a situation that broke me badly from inside. That was my first encounter with what I called a failure back then. I practiced hard for an event and did not win the competition. The inner self of me could not just accept that fact and I remember crying for several hours and did not eat food even. After the initial crying phase was over, I went to my mother with this question. Mommy, why did I not win? Why did this happen to me? I gave my hundred percent; then why did I lose? My mother explained me the answer with a beautiful story, that gave peace to my mind. Here goes the story.

Once a farmer was working on his field. He had several acres of field with variety of crops. But he was not happy. Some thoughts were disturbing him, and he was looking for some answers from God or the almighty power. That day God decided to pay him a visit. He disguised himself as another farmer friend and went to the unhappy farmer. After the initial greetings of hi and hello, God asked him, you have these beautiful crops. How did you achieve this? The farmer felt proud of his work and said, it is after a lot of hard work I have done all this. Then God asked, did anyone help you with this? The farmer answered, No.  Nobody helped me. It’s all done by me. Then God pointed him to another field and asked what happened over there. Why in that field the crops are bad? What went wrong? 

The farmer said, don’t even ask me. It's all God's fault. I don't know why God did this to me. Why have I had to incur loss for my work? Such a big piece of field got wasted like that. Because of that, I am unhappy. Every time I look at that field, I see my failure and that disturbs me.  Listening to this, God as the disguised farmer smiled and said. My dear friend, you have so many fields of healthy crops. But you never credited anyone for that. Neither God nor your surrounding nature. It was all because of your hard work you said. Just one bad crop and you blame it all on God and nature. There could be a possibility of your negligence. Moreover, even if one of the crops turned out bad, you shouldn't be taking that as a failure of your farming abilities. Take it as a learning what not to do and next time that field is also going to produce the desired result. After hearing this, the farmer felt relieved and thanked the other farmer for clarifying his doubt. 

When we blame other people or external factors for our failure, we are giving the control of our life to somebody else which makes us powerless. We should take responsibility of all our actions. That is the only way we can start a new beginning. Our happiness or failure solely depend on us. Yes, the external factors influence them. God or nature just helps us in showing various options, but the decision is on us to choose the one we want.

Does knowing the reason behind the pain makes it any less? The answer is no. Still we always seek for an explanation for things that happened. In practicality, that is just past. A moment that cannot be reverted. A loss that can't be filled. Only thing that can be done is looking for its cure. A path that moves forward. So instead of blaming or putting self-doubt, engage the energy in resolving the issues. Life is supposed to be difficult. This is the only way we learn and grow.