There Is No Pure Coincidence — Everything Happens For A Reason

There are many ways of inter­pret­ing things that hap­pen in our lives. From my per­spec­tive, there is no such thing as a pure coin­ci­dence, but every­thing hap­pens for a rea­sonand there are ways to lever­age on and learn from that.

Good and bad things alike, have helped me to under­stand my envi­ron­ment bet­ter and to improve the qual­i­ty of my life. It’s not that I’d be look­ing for bad things to hap­pen or that I’d be explic­it­ly happy when they occur but I have learned to accept them as some­thing that becomes a part of my life and that teach­es me something. 

The more I have learned to cope with bad things and to turn result­ing neg­a­tive ener­gy in accep­tance, or, even bet­ter, in pos­i­tive ener­gy, I’m won­der­ing about many peo­ple around me seem­ing­ly strug­gling with that. Time and again I over­hear peo­ple lament­ing about ‘huge’ prob­lems that rather sound as neg­li­gi­ble triv­ia to my ears. It seems that some people’s main prob­lem is that their prob­lems are too small.

Life Hack: Make Your­self Smaller

It does not nec­es­sar­i­ly work all the time but it works imme­di­ate­ly and uncon­di­tion­al­ly: if I accept bad things that hap­pen as a mat­ter of fact and then decide whether to only accept it, change the sit­u­a­tion or leave it, my actions become cool­er and smarter. I don’t feel stressed. Instead, I con­cen­trate on what to do and start tak­ing action imme­di­ate­ly: I don’t resist, I don’t judge and I don’t inhere. And it does­n’t take much to act in this way. The only thing I have to keep in mind: I have to remem­ber this life hack at the very begin­ning of each bad sit­u­a­tion and to start apply­ing it immediately.

A good exam­ple of a ‘huge’ prob­lem would be some traf­fic sit­u­a­tion when anoth­er dri­ver honks and flips you the bird. A typ­i­cal reflex­ive action would be to do the same or retal­i­ate in a seem­ing­ly more pow­er­ful way. Instead, remem­ber the above and try this: smile and don’t react at all. Or: excuse your­self and wave to him in an obvi­ous­ly apolo­getic way. Try not to make your­self more pow­er­ful than him but less, more humble. 

There Is No Pure Coincidence

This will result in two effects: the other per­son will calm down and you your­self expe­ri­ence a weird feel­ing of inner peace: if you make your­self less­er, or small­er, you will in fact expe­ri­ence the oppo­site feel­ing of being grown, instead. This life hack has helped me in many sit­u­a­tions that oth­er­wise could have been esca­lat­ed. If you make your­self small­er in order not to esca­late poten­tial prob­lems you learn to deal with these sit­u­a­tions in an easy and ele­gant way. That abil­i­ty def­i­nite­ly improves your over­all qual­i­ty of life.

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GOOD READS

The Mind­ful Rev­o­lu­tion, Michael Reuter

Die Acht­same Rev­o­lu­tion, Michael Reuter

What‘s our prob­lem?, Tim Urban

Rebel Ideas — The Power of Diverse Think­ing, Matthew Syed

Die Macht unser­er Gene, Daniel Wallerstorfer

Jel­ly­fish Age Back­wards, Nick­las Brendborg

The Expec­ta­tion Effect, David Robson

Breathe, James Nestor

The Idea of the Brain, Matthew Cobb

The Great Men­tal Mod­els I, Shane Parrish

Sim­ple Rules, Don­ald Sull, Kath­leen M. Eisenhardt

Mit Igno­ran­ten sprechen, Peter Modler

The Secret Lan­guage of Cells, Jon Lieff

Evo­lu­tion of Desire: A Life of René Girard, Cyn­thia L. Haven

Grasp: The Sci­ence Trans­form­ing How We Learn, San­jay Sara

Rewire Your Brain , John B. Arden

The Wim Hof Method, Wim Hof

The Way of the Ice­man, Koen de Jong

Soft Wired — How The New Sci­ence of Brain Plas­tic­i­ty Can Change Your Life, Michael Merzenich

The Brain That Changes Itself, Nor­man Doidge

Lifes­pan, David Sinclair

Out­live — The Sci­ence and Art of Longevi­ty, Peter Attia

Younger You — Reduce Your Bioage And Live Longer, Kara N. Fitzgerald

What Does­n’t Kill Us, Scott Carney

Suc­cess­ful Aging, Daniel Levithin

Der Ernährungskom­pass, Bas Kast

The Way We Eat Now, Bee Wilson

Dein Gehirn weiss mehr als Du denkst, Niels Birbaumer

Denken: Wie das Gehirn Bewusst­sein schafft, Stanis­las Dehaene

Mind­ful­ness, Ellen J. Langer

100 Plus: How The Com­ing Age of Longevi­ty Will Change Every­thing, Sonia Arrison

Think­ing Like A Plant, Craig Holdredge

Das Geheime Wis­sen unser­er Zellen, Son­dra Barret

The Code of the Extra­or­di­nary Mind, Vishen Lakhiani

Altered Traits, Daniel Cole­man, Richard Davidson

The Brain’s Way Of Heal­ing, Nor­man Doidge

The Last Best Cure, Donna Jack­son Nakazawa

The Inner Game of Ten­nis, W. Tim­o­thy Gallway

Run­ning Lean, Ash Maurya

Sleep — Schlafen wie die Profis, Nick Littlehales

© 2024 MICHAEL REUTER