Life is lived with both bitter and sweet experiences. The people you meet both good and bad, add to your wealth of experience. But it depends on how you assess what you see in them. What you get from them can lead to your growth or destroy who you are, depending on your spiritual maturity. Life is full of new discoveries. Whom you meet can increase your faith in God, and can destroy your faith. Everyday has its lesson for us. The experience of each day helps us to understand ourselves and the world around us and understand others who work with us. Both sweet and bitter experiences help us to shape our personality profile. We are shocked at our bitter experiences, but they help us grow spiritually, economically and socially, if handled properly. In our attempts to explore the world for the benefit of humankind, we can hurt ourselves, but life is full of risks. One can risk his life as he tries to discover himself and others in human relationships.
Life is full of challenges that leads to growth and growth takes place when one risks his life.When one is afraid to risk his life, he will not find meaning in his life. Life’s experiences can be frightening but they make us what we are. Nobody lives without experiences, and every man’s life is full of stories that accompany them. Frustrating experiences do leave psychological scars on us, and that make up our bitter experiences in life. That can make use lose balance in life. When those bad experiences begin to linger in our lives, we become victims. Life is full of interpretations, and misinterpretations of intentions and misinformation. Misinterpretations have led people astray. Many people have parted because of misinterpretations of each other without clarification and friendships destroyed. At times, we pick the interpretation that offends us when people are talking.
We do so because we want to. We need to forgive ourselves if we pick up interpretations that offend us. If we are sure of ourselves and ready to grow, nothing that a person says can hurt us, because every statement made by people has something to teach us. Let us not have a hang-up of the past. We often listen to others with our hang-ups which make us misunderstand people when they are talking to us. We must not live with hang-ups for they mar our spiritual growth. Let us not rehash the negative aspect of others because it will not make us meet them at the point of friendship. We should not pull-down others to be the governor of a situation. Pull down syndrome is the order of the day. When pulling others down, you are also pulling down yourself, for we are meant to build a solid society of peace not “I ALONE” but “WE” to avoid selfishness and retrogression.
• Very Rev. Msgr. Livinus Ukah is a Catholic Priest, author of many books and a Social Justice and Peace Advocate.
