What If It Never Makes Sense?

I’ve spent a lot of time lately trying to make things make sense. Maybe too much time.

Why did this happen? How did we get here? What did I miss? What could I have done differently? Maybe you know that loop too. Something happens that doesn't fit the story you thought you were living and suddenly your brain becomes determined to solve it.

We go back over conversations, decisions and details, convinced there must be something we missed. There’s something about why that makes us believe if we keep asking long enough, eventually we’ll find the answer that makes everything click into place.

Except sometimes there isn’t one.

Sepsis certainly didn't make sense. There was no answer to why that was going to change what had happened. So eventually the questions became different. What now? How do we navigate this? Where do we go from here?

Apparently, I needed that lesson again.

Because life has changed dramatically again and I’ve spent too much of the past month trying to understand something I cannot make sense of. I’ve looked at it from every direction. Replayed conversations. Asked questions. Tried to reconcile the life I thought I was living with the one I suddenly find myself in. I kept thinking there had to be an answer somewhere that would make the pieces fit.

Then one of his closest friends called me.

He told me that he had come and told his wife and they had spent hours the night before trying to understand whaat was happening. They had looked at it from every perspective they could think of and neither of them could make sense of it either. Then he gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received.

"The sooner you stop looking at what doesn’t make sense and start looking toward where you want to go, the faster you’re going to get there."

And then he added something I probably needed to hear:

"Trust me. If there were answers here, we would have found them last night."

Well. That's a thought.

And maybe you have something in your life that refuses to make sense too.

A relationship. A diagnosis. A decision someone made. A job you didn't get. Something you did everything “right” for that still didn't work out.

What if some things simply never make sense?

What if sometimes there simply isn’t an answer that will satisfy us? And more importantly, what if we don’t need one?

I think we can spend an enormous amount of time looking backward for answers because we believe understanding is required before we can move forward. Sometimes it is useful. There are things worth understanding about ourselves, our choices and our patterns. If there’s something to learn, I want to learn it.

There are plenty of why questions worth asking. Sometimes the answers teach us something important about ourselves, our choices or our patterns. But there's a difference between learning from something and getting stuck trying to solve it.

Sometimes why? becomes a place we live.

Curiosity lets us turn the question around. Where do I want to go from here? I love that question because it gives something back to us.

Choice.

I may not get to choose what happened. I may not understand it. I may not like it and I definitely don’t have to pretend I’m grateful for it. But I still get a say in what I do next.

That’s a very different place to put my energy.

Instead of asking why did this happen? for the hundredth time, what if we asked: What matters now? What do I want my life to feel like? What is still possible? What do I need to let go of? What's one thing I can do today that moves me toward where I want to be? Those questions may not explain the past. But they can help create the future.

I have absolutely no idea what my future looks like right now. There are parts of my life I would very much like explained, thank you very much.

But maybe I don't have to wait for those explanations. Maybe you don't either.

Some things will eventually make sense and some never will. Either way, I don't want to spend so much time staring backward looking for an answer that I forget I still get to decide which direction I walk.

So I'm trying a new question. Maybe it's one worth trying with me.

Not why am I here?

Where do I want to go from here?

If You’re Curious…

• Is there something in your life you’re still trying to make sense of that may never give you a satisfying answer?

• What could you learn from it without needing to completely understand it?

• If you stopped asking why did this happen? for a moment, what would you want to ask about where you go next?