Connect the dots to see how everything happens for a reason

The author’s account shows how every random experience has a purpose, leading to a meaningful understanding of life’s harmony and interconnectedness.

Years ago, I took up my first job in a reputed organization immediately after completing my professional degree, and it felt wonderful. For the next four years, the place gave me enough opportunities to learn and grow from a fresher to an experienced contributor to the team. Respect and recognition were coming forth, and everything looked perfect.

When anyone would want to keep going with the flow, here I was, processing thoughts of change and career growth. Opportunity knocked soon, and I moved on to my second job. It was no less than my first job, and with the change of industry, I was getting to learn new things, and I felt deeply contented.

Transition

I had been very contented for just four months when a phone call changed everything. An ex-colleague from my first job, who had also moved to a new job within my industry, offered me an interesting opportunity in a key role. The company was much smaller, but with new projects, things had to be set up from the start. To know that someone saw the potential in me to handle it felt rewarding. I jumped again after my shortest stint, trusting the promises.

The office premises and set-up were still in a nascent stage in my city. So, I had to move to a new city for the first six months. I was all by myself for the first time. It was yet another new experience of staying away from home. The job was going great, but the contentment was short-lived. The promises I trusted turned out to be hollow. Once the initial setup was done and things fell into place, I felt pushed into the crowd. The recognition was not cascaded properly, and I felt used up for a short-term need. It was just my fifth career year, and I felt miserable. I was forced to shift back to the new office set-up in my hometown and I continued as just another employee in the organization.

Introspection

This stagnation was new and unacceptable for an aspiring career woman on a constant up-ride. I questioned my own decisions. I felt I was too immature to jump jobs so soon. I wasn’t confident to do it again nor ready to stay put. Each day at work looked like years. I felt lost. I had only ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ in my head.

-Why did I leave a job when it was going great?
-Why did I quit a good job within four months and cause a dent in my CV?
-Why did my judgment about someone go so wrong?
-Why am I feeling stuck?
-Why am I not ready to move again?
-What lies ahead?
How often do we go through phases in our lives when a few distinct incidents occur, and all or most of them seem to be turning unfavorable to us? My situation was one such, and I felt confused and couldn’t justify any of my own decisions.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life”.

~ Steve Jobs

The fortune

Little did I know then that all this had to happen for the most beautiful event to unfold in my life, which will remain the best event of my life. All those seemingly unfavorable events eventually led me to get connected to my Guru, Mahatria, the diviner of ‘infinitheism’, whom I had been admiring only through his writings and thus find my path of spiritual / holistic growth.  

The path, founded by my Guru, had a 16-session course, which was the entry to the path. The sessions were in the evenings, and being on time was the most important requirement. You will be out of the course a minute late, whatever the reason might be. I had known about it for a few months but was unable to join since my workplace in my first two jobs was quite far from the venue. Besides, my job required late hours frequently, and leaving on time was not easy.  

It might appear a sheer coincidence, but I would call it a providential gift, or a divine orchestration of all those seemingly undesirable events that landed me in a perfect place at the perfect timing. My new office in Chennai was just three buildings away from my temple of transformation, the place where the sessions happened. I enrolled immediately. The ‘just another employee’ stigma turned into a blessing, allowing me to leave on time. The course and everything that followed on the path filled my life with faith and miracles. So much has happened in my life ever since, pleasant, and unpleasant, but everything has been draped with the protective fabric of faith, which was deepened by the path.  

Everything happens for a reason

Now, if you scroll up a few paragraphs in this article and read those ‘Whys’, what appeared bad luck and unfortunate in the first reading will all now feel like a blessing or a preparation for something most fortunate that was to come. Only that I was not aware of it when they were happening.

I can relate to so many other events in my life that seemed unwanted and incomprehensible when they happened, but when I look back at them after days/months/years, everything has a better purpose and a positive impact on my life.

I am sure all of you reading this will be able to relate to this in your own lives. Every random happening in our lives turns useful to us at some point in time, either as a lesson or as a blessing, either way raising us to maturity and wisdom.  

Even now, my life has its share of ups and downs. But now that I have learned to connect the dots backward, I just go through everything as an experience, knowing well that this is just a random bead, a dot, waiting to be strung together in the future.  The randomness is not necessarily unpleasant. Even some extraordinarily beautiful incidents, which happen unexpectedly, like meeting some beautiful people in your life accidentally, are just a dot waiting to be connected. We just need to learn to embrace everything with a smile and simply wait with faith.    

We will never be able to tell where the happenings in our lives are going to lead us.  However, we just need to believe that the very same thing that we cannot understand or resist will one day make us smile thinking about how it has shaped our lives. With that faith, the hurdles become easier to cross, and the fear of the unknown gradually becomes less intense and vanishes with time.  

For some of you, this could be a random read while scrolling your phone, which might become the seed for some future event. Until then, smile and wait!