Look back at your life and you realize that every moment — Happy and Sad ones fit the puzzle perfectly well and contributed to who you are today and they do make absolute sense
Life is a journey full of eventful experiences. Every small experience builds up over a person’s lifetime and they become a person’s life experience as such. When this experience is good we tend to enjoy it, but when the same experience is bad we generally do not understand why this is happening to us and keep wondering about it. Sometimes we tend to fall into depression, of course, negative experiences can’t make anyone feel better.
However, as we move through life, we may find that many of these experiences are connected in ways we never thought possible. Connecting the dots back in life is a process of examining our past experiences and discovering how they have shaped our present and future.
The concept of connecting the dots back in life is often associated with Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. In his famous Stanford University commencement speech in 2005, Jobs described how the seemingly unrelated experiences he had in his life ultimately led him to create the iconic company that changed the world. The process of connecting the dots back in life begins with reflection. We need to take the time to look back at the different experiences we have had and think about how they have influenced us. This can be a difficult process, as it often involves confronting some of the more challenging and painful experiences we have had in life. However, it is only by understanding how these experiences have shaped us that we can move forward and grow.
Initially, this seems like a challenging task to undertake, one can’t really fathom the negative experiences of life, for some, it is very painful to look back and to be honest people would give anything to forget painful past incidents.
So what is the purpose of life?
Is it just to keep winning at everything you try and just be happy? No, and thank god it isn’t boring with just happy moments. What makes happy moments happy? It’s the sadness, defeats, and struggles that make every positive situation a happy one, it enables you to savor the sweet nectar of victory.
For this you need to remember the past, those painful moments which made you cry, painful moments of struggle, defeats, and humiliation. You need to remember all this to persevere, push and move forward. When you work towards a certain goal sincerely you will get what you aim for without fail. That is the law of nature. When this goal is achieved you are happy because you struggled, it makes victory sweeter. For this, you need to connect the dots back and you would see that every point in life where you struggled or experienced an unfavorable event actually made you stronger, you will never realize it when you go through that negative experience, but when the prized victory arrives; you can clearly see the puzzle complete with the dots connecting backwards.
The problem with us is that we focus so much only on major life events which we consider as watershed moments in our life, but in reality, it's those tiny insignificant events in your daily life that add up to the sum total of your life experience.
Do not wait for life-turning events to change your life
We think that the small insignificant events do not matter, instead, we wait for life-defining moments to turn our life around. But the reality is that we need to focus on those tiny insignificant moments. Be conscious of every what your do and how you react to every question life throws at you. It could be as simple as your kid putting up a tantrum or your colleague being annoying or when you are trying to focus on finding a solution to a crisis. There is no definite answer to every problem, but you can definitely control how you react to each situation that’s thrown at you. Every second is a test.
Life is a test — but there is no ranking
Every second in life is a test, or it is not. Consciously control every action such that your responses
1. Do not bring harm to others in any way
2. There is no ill will in any of your actions and thoughts — most often our actions don’t intend harm, but our thoughts do, our minds are so busy with non-stop chatter and it's difficult for an average human mind to not think negatively. If not completely stop at least try to eliminate them as much as possible. Over time we should see significant improvement
3. Be positive and don’t expect the outcome to always be in your favor
4. Treat every outcome the same, good or bad, they add up to your experience and when you connect the dots back you will see that it all made sense
There are 8+ Billion people on this Earth, you can't have a ranking system and define each person by attributing success or failure. Every person has his or her own happiness index. Do what makes you happy and chose to live a life that you love rather than the one your family, friends or neighbors want you to live. Leading life on your terms is true success!
When you reflect back on your past at any moment in life — be proud of your journey and be proud of who you are. But for that to happen you should have failed, slipped and fallen down multiple times, learnt your lessons to stand up on your own and that is what would enable you to be proud — By connecting the dots back!
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