Things Don’t Always Work Out

Stop lying to yourself. Not everything works out. Even when something does.

Not everything works out as planned nor does it work out as it’s supposed to. Here I am, upset in a moment of failure, with everyone telling me that “everything will work out as it is supposed to.” I’m not sure I know whose “suppose to” things are working out, but I know it’s not mine. If my expectations are not being met, then whose expectations are?

I know it sounds comfortable to believe that “everything works out” but my experience suggests that’s not true. Something has had to fail for us to believe that it will “work out”. Something has slipped out of alignment in order for us to suffer the indignity of failure. I don’t have the scars on my heart and flesh because everything has worked out. I have them because things didn’t work out, and I found a way to survive.

Looking back on my relationships, I can see utter failure speckled with little dots of success. Even as I repeated the tired mantras of “everything happens for a reason” and “everything works out as it’s supposed to”, I was failing. I was miserably failing and using unwise words to comfort me in that failure.

When I used those words in the frequently-used context I was using them, I was seeking to absolve myself of responsibility for the failure.

The only truth to those words was that things were truly happening for a reason. It just wasn’t the reason I was pointing to. When I said those words in the frequently-used context I was using them, I was seeking to absolve myself of responsibility for the failure. After all, isn’t there a higher power for whom I can blame this failure? Isn’t there some wonderful rainbow soon to be coming in this storm? Isn’t destiny steering this ship?

When I can focus on such things, I can stop focusing on what was truly the problem. Me.

Now that’s not to suggest that I was the sole cause of the dysfunction in my relationships. Even in those instances where I wasn’t the problem, I was part of it. I provided fertile ground for dysfunction to take hold, and I fed the weeds just as much as I was a weed. I don’t own the dysfunction of others, but I do realize it can’t exist in my field unless I invite it in and give it a place to take root. In that way, I am the reason for it in my own life.

My marriage did not work out as it was supposed to. As it was supposed to work out, I’m still married and we’re happy, raising our kids together in a small mountain town living a ruggedly modern life. It did, however, fail as it was supposed to.

One of the most important days of my life came when my now ex-wife told me she wanted out of our marriage. She not only showed me the pattern of dysfunction we had settled into, but she refused to further engage in it. She had taken ownership of her field and I needed to be weeded out of it. She, in turn, needed to be weeded out of mine.

By refusing to engage in further into our pattern of dysfunction, she forced me to look solely, and soully, on my own.

The darkness that followed was filled with lessons that changed my life. I am putting together a book about this experience but let me just say that I survived what did not work out so that I could understand that it did not work out for a reason. The reason, however, had nothing to do with the future. In fact, was not even sure I would live to have a future.

My marriage did not work out as it was supposed to. As it was supposed to work out, I’m still married and we’re happy, raising our kids together in a small mountain town living a ruggedly modern life. It did, however, fail as it was supposed to. It failed because of our actions as a couple, of our lack of understanding of who we were as individuals and who we needed to be in order to succeed as a couple.

Everything did happen for a reason, and that reason was we failed to do some of the things that would have kept us married. The reason was not the enlightenment I was going to find, or the Code I was going to develop, or the tribulations I was going to endure. Everything that happened in my marriage and divorce happened because two people failed in their relationship with one another. Those other things? They happened for a completely different reason.

In that relationship, we failed to get to truly know each other and slowly discovered what we did know wasn’t to our liking. That’s where I will leave it as it pertains to “us”. I will now switch gears as to how it pertains to me.

Not only did we fail to know each other as a couple, but I failed to know myself as an individual. I failed to know not only who I was, but who I wanted to be. What I used as a guide to who I wanted to be was in who others told me I had to be. I had to be brave. I had to be strong. I had to be this, and I had to be that. Never once did I consider who I wanted to be, or how I wanted to exist in the world.

The empowerment of the individual exists in the individual taking complete ownership for who, and what, he is.

I also never once took true responsibility for who I was. Until a person owns who they are and takes full responsibility for who they are, they can never change who the are. The empowerment of the individual exists in the individual taking complete ownership for who, and what, he is.

That’s when the reality of what it means for something to “happen for a reason” begins to take hold. Our lives begin to change. We fall in love in meaningful and wildly adventurous relationships.

Personal empowerment also exists in the choices we make and in taking full responsibility for those choices. While the feel-good mantra of “everything works out” may comfort us in the moments of despair, the truth is that nothing will work out until we decide to make it work out. Our intentions, our desires, are only as good as our actions. Our truths, no matter how fucked up and dysfunctional they may be, are displayed most truthfully in our actions no matter what words we use.

When we are owning who we are, and we love who we are, our actions will reflect that. If we are angry, we’ll be angry. If we are happy, we’ll be happy. If we are in love, we’ll be in love. Everything that is true about us will come foaming to the surface because warriors such as we do not hide that shit. We display it because we are proud of it, and we know the world needs us. There are a zillion actors out there trying to make everyone else happy while working overtime to calm the fears that bubble up inside them. We, those of us who no longer wish to act, refuse to be one of them.

That’s when the reality of what it means for something to “happen for a reason” begins to take hold. Our lives begin to change. We fall in love in meaningful and wildly adventurous relationships. The main difference between the mantras we used to use and the mantras we use now is that today’s mantras are about today’s enrichment, not tomorrow’s hope.

We still feel pain, but we begin to use that pain to understand what we need to do to end the pain. It’s no longer about what wonders will exist next year because of the suffering of today, it’s about what the suffering of today can teach us to enrich our lives now, tomorrow, and forever.

A relationship today may fail and that failure may be painful. What it won’t be is something I use to invent a wonderful experience later on in life. I will use that failure and that pain to understand the lesson of the experience and then use that lesson as a way to enrich my life right now. Today. This very minute.

Every single moment of our lives is a learning experience. Our bodies learn with every breath, our hearts learn with every crack. Lessons are wasted if only experienced for some wild-eyed hope for the future. Find the one who knows your lessons well and who can bravely walk with you even if there are some stumbles along the way. Play the music that inspires a song even if it’s only in that one person who will rub your head and say your name in her dreams. Mostly, let everything that was supposed to work out suddenly work out in that moment. It will take courage, so be courageous. It will take awareness, so be aware. Then, perhaps, the reason won’t be some hope of success in the future, but a reality of truth now.

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