It's a Win-Learn Situation

This post is in response to two of my previous posts-first, I hope this can help my friends and second, it takes advantage of that perspective I have on the world, in that I love spite.

Over the past few months, perhaps due to the increasing amount of stock I put on fate or greater meaning (which contrasts with me previous existential-everything-is-nothing crisis), I've come to the conclusion that there is no losing, only learning.

The best way to take advantage of a bad situation is to profit off it. For example, returning to the theme of an earlier post of mine, spite. When you've been hurt by someone, don't try to exact revenge upon that individual. Then you lower yourself to his/her level. Instead, take what happened and improve yourself in spite of it. For every person who looks down upon you, or patronizes your beliefs, take that situation and try to understand what it means about who the other person is, and who you are. You don't need them anyway-prove it to yourself that you can be better off without them. That you are better off. Last fall I had the best semester of my life. I stayed on top of my work, managed Sustainability@MIT, and represented MIT at Copenhagen for COP15, even though I had just lost one of my best friends, I'll call this individual "friend X." I was so hurt and angry that, as the cliche goes, I poured myself into my work. But at the same time, I put my heart into everything I did. No longer was I worried about getting the approval of friend X, whom I admired and respected so greatly. I was concerned about living for myself and figuring out what it was that I wanted and how I would achieve it. At the same time, I continued to think about what had happened and reflected on it as much as I could. What had been different with this friend than other friends? My most loyal friends stuck by me and wouldn't leave my side, and thanks to my friend X I now appreciated them so much more and stopped taking them for granted. It was largely my fault that we stopped speaking, and I wanted to apologize but I didn't know how. If I could go back, are there things I would change? Yes. But it doesn't mean that there aren't good reasons for things to have happened like they did.

What does this have to do with putting too much stock in fate? Two years ago I got a foam dinosaur from my employer, Arcadis, at the career fair. I wanted to give it to my brother, however friend X accidentally ripped the head off ( ha ha ha). Two years late, friend X and I no longer speak, and I end up working for this company the summer after we stop speaking. I'm crazy, yes I know.

Back to the central point. Opportunity in crisis. Phoenix from the ashes. Lemonade. Call it what you want, but just give it some thought. When someone hurts you, think about why it happened. What is the relationship you share with that person, and how does that relationship reflect a microcosm of the human condition? Learn from it. Profit from it. Take it and run with it. Fight-but don't fight back. Eat some modern chicken noodle soup. Most of all, know that your friends are there for you and that sometimes you have to ask because they might not figure it out for themselves. All you need is one.

Plenty of people have learned this lesson before, and plenty of people have preached it. I'm sharing it now because maybe, just maybe, it'll help someone. That's all that counts.