Why Me?

One of the most common phrase when we don’t get what we expect and we are given something which makes us unhappy –Why Me? We always think when something goes wrong in our life that every thing is bad and times when we are happy makes us love everything.

When I was in school there was a riddle asked: what is heavier? 1kg iron or 1kg cotton? Our mind tells us it is iron which is heavier but the answer always make us wonder how could we go wrong with such a silly question?

The essence of this equation goes a long way in life. I consider iron as the negative emotion and cotton as the positive. It is always seen iron feels heavier just like sorrow, fear, anger, frustration etc., and even a pinch of it is enough to mark its presence. When it comes to cotton, any amount of happiness, fun, love, success etc. feels lighter and to feel the presence of these emotions you need the quantity to be much more than that of iron. Ideally, we do have both, but pain stays for longer since it cannot fly away like cotton and no matter how much we want to hold on to happiness, its light weight always makes it fly away.

When we go through phases of pain and disappointment in life, we often question “why me?” Our justification when we have the conversation within ourselves is: “I have never done anything wrong, never hurt anyone so why am I going through this?” When that phase ends and we find happiness no one questions: “why me?” There is a lot we teach our kids when we say “why me?”

We are in a world where every parent wants to give only the best to their kids. This means everyone wants to see only cotton flying around us everywhere. Imagine a world like that. If I fly cotton and it starts irritating your nose, then in turn you will also do something to get rid of that. So ultimately because my happiness hurt you, you tried to end your pain which resulted in ending my happiness. Let’s stop focusing on having a comfortable life only, lets focus on learning how to make life comfortable in any situation.

Past 2 years, covid has given us a different experience of life. When the whole world was dealing with pandemic no one bothered to ask why me. It is human nature to always see the good what others have and compare that with the bad that we have. But during the pandemic, we were forced to learn to be content with the good we have. Now, that things are getting back to normalcy, we are also going back to what we were 2years back. We are forgetting what covid taught us and focusing only on what we lost due to covid.

Two years of online school have made our kids accustom to their own comfort where they don’t share a table with their classmate, don’t realize that the kid sitting next to them is unwell and has not come to class, don’t know if they have to carry water bottle and after the sports class if someone wants water how to share, how to wait for their turn to get into the school bus, how to save a seat during lunch break for their friends etc. Parents saw what was missing during kids’ growth because of no schools and tried to compensate everything they could by providing comfort. Did this make them self-sufficient, or will they start asking the same when something goes wrong and they don’t feel the comfort they are used to – why me?

One day, my daughter came back from school and told me: “we did not have place at the designated lunch area because it was occupied by all higher graders”. So, I asked her did you not have place to sit and eat? She told “no, we went other side near basketball court and had there”. I was curious to know then what was the problem. She told my friends were not happy because why should only higher graders get that place and why not us?

Next day, I get to know some parents complained to school stating their kids don’t have place to sit at the designated lunch area. Actual problem would have come if kid had no place to eat and so missed lunch. Here the only problem is why should I sit elsewhere. As parents we are missing to see where our next generation is heading because we keep asking why me when someone else gets better than us according to us. We are not only trying to provide all materialistic comfort but also keeping them away from what life is and showing them only the rosy picture without thorns. We are not only fighting their battles for them but also telling them we will ensure you will only have happiness by depriving them of the opportunity for them to become strong by facing their problems. As parents we are creating a bubble for our kids and making them believe life is just what you see within this bubble. Anything out side this we will handle and you don’t have to worry. When these kids start realizing life outside the bubble, we see vulnerable adults who are lost in their own life where they are ignorant, incapable and immature to handle not only difficult situation but they wont even know to identify what makes them happy.

Covid taught us to respect minimal life
Life taught us to value life
Gratitude will help us to grow in life.

Help children to see what we have and not question what we don’t. When we whole heartedly accept hatred, sorrow, disappointment anger etc. without a caveat of conditions apply, why do we add an asterix (*) for happiness, love, laughter, satisfaction etc. Nothing knocks our door with any condition. It is only our mindset which is always conditioned to question why me when things go wrong. When 1kg of iron rod can help us weigh 1kg of cotton, the same cotton can be used to cover that iron bar which will help us see happiness surrounding the sadness at any instance. The more we focus on asking why me, the less time we get to realize the love and compassion we have in life which supports us to overcome that unpleasant phase.

When why me changes to why not, every problem becomes an opportunity, and every challenge becomes a memory.