Life as a Teacher : Learning Lessons
There is a popular belief in new age circles that we go through tough life situations to be taught a lesson… or to learn a lesson. That every ‘bad’ thing that happens to us, happens to us so that we learn a lesson.
I’m sure it comes as no surprise by now that I disagree. Although, I think that from one perspective, it can look like that, I think there is a better, more sensible, less martyrous (if that is even a word) way of looking at it.
I teach my students that nothing occurs within our natural world that does not follow natural law. That is, in fact, the essence of the definition of natural law. If I believe that nothing occurs within our world that does not follow natural law, then I must also believe that all living beings around me live within the same natural laws as I do. I don’t know about you but I have yet to see a deer crying in it’s forest over not yet having learned the lesson it was to have learned from the universe.
No… although deer have thought and emotion and likely individual thought and personality, they simply act upon instinct and survival. Eat when there is food, run when there is danger, take care of the young. They aren’t killed off because they don’t learn the lesson… natural selection weeds out the ones who don’t follow basic survival instinct as the world around them shifts.
I prefer not to think of life as a strict instructor with a ruler of retribution always ready, with which, to rap our knuckles. I, rather, think of life more as a stream of time and cause and effect and other natural laws that we move through. Things happen to us in response to our actions, thoughts and Will. And as things happen to us, we have the opportunity to learn something – or not, as we so choose. Although this may sound the same as the previously mentioned new age fluff, there is a very subtle but fundamental difference. I do not believe that the universe or life or fate has a Will that teaches us lessons. I believe that we have the OPPORTUNITY, not the obligation, to learn something from each encounter with the outside world if we so choose and that we have free will as to whether or not to apply what we have learned – and how.
If I consistently found myself in a bad relationship, new agers would be likely to say that I needed to learn a lesson about why I need that in my life. If I consistently found myself rolling in a pile of money, I would be told by the same people that I must have earned it. Why then do I not need to learn a lesson about money? Inconsistency based upon interpretation is a really good sign that something about the theory just isn’t quite right.
Although I might choose to take a deeper look at what were causing me to make poor relationship choices and I might even have an AH HAH moment, I can also choose not to apply that new knowledge. Simply learning something from an encounter does not stop it from reoccurring in a similar way. Likewise, were I to happen upon a new action without learning a lick, the outcome would be different just as if I had ‘earned a lesson’ and applied it.
The same situation doesn’t happen to one over and over because one needs to learn a lesson or because the universe is trying to get a point across with a blunt object about the neck and shoulders. The same situation happens over and over because one chooses not to change their actions. That choice and free will lies directly on the shoulders of the individual… not the universe.
