What people tell me when things don’t go my way: “It’s for the best”. 

What people tell me when something good happens: “See? I told you, everything happens for the best”. 

I would like to take this opportunity to exercise my first amendment rights and say to those people: “IT IS NOT FOR THE BEST”.

I agree wholeheartedly that every single situation in one’s life, whether it be perceived as “good” or “bad”, has something positive to be found within- an experience to keep in lifelong memories, a lesson learned for the future, an opportunity for self-growth and building inner strength. However, this does not mean that everything that happens is always and necessarily for the best. I understand that I am in the minority here, and that it may come as somewhat of a shock to hear this from someone as full of faith as I consider myself to be, but I stand firm to the belief that sometimes, things just happen. It may not be what you wanted or even what’s best for yourself, your life, or the lives of others, but it happens anyway. 

I do not regret or want to change anything I have done or that has happened to me in my life- I love who I am and what my life is all about and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But that does not mean that if things had turned out some other way, I would not be just as content and accepting of it all as I am right now. I have somehow managed to find the good in even the worst of times, but this does not mean that everything happened for the best. I understand where people are coming from when they say that everything happens for the best, but I imagine it’s somewhat of a known source of comfort that many are accustomed to believing, or that perhaps, our ideas of what is “best” are just very different. 

I guess the funny thing about life is that there’s no way to really know how things “could have been”. It all is what it is; we can control our thoughts and actions most of the time and try our best for life to go our way, but for everything else, it’s best to just accept that it is what it is, and even though it is not always for the best, there is something beautiful in every experience that comes our way which should be welcomed with open arms as part of the amazing experience of being so simply and complexly human.