I know why life isn't always smooth sailing, why bad things happen to good people. I know this now because slowly, very slowly, over the past few years, I started believing in a higher purpose, or power, of some sort. Once you understand there is more to life than what you see in front of your face, life gets happier and more bearable.
I went to catholic school for twelve years and those people ruined me, but I didn't figure it out until too many years later. The things I learned about religion were so fantastic, absurd, harsh, and hard for a smart kid to swallow as true. We were so busy memorizing Beatitudes (whatever they are) that we never got down to the nitty gritty - that we're supposed to improve as human beings and that life goes on after your aging body stops working.
It started when I met a highly-accomplished local Roman Catholic doctor who had some otherworldly experiences (she wrote a book) and she was cool about it and was still a sought-after doctor who used science to heal people. Well, it probably really started when a friend pursing her MBA fifteen years ago took an elective Feng Shui class at a well-known university. She was eh about it at the time until I got a hold of all the class material, devoured it, and realized there is something to this and told everyone who would listen. It made me think that the universe and the air we breathe might be more powerful than I ever gave it credit for. So THAT was when my mind opened a crack to the idea that there are spiritual things we might not understand.
Once my mind was slightly opened, it was much easier for me to look at things in a different way. I was always one of those annoying people wondering, usually out loud, What is the meaning of life? What is the POINT of all this?
Little things happened here and there, including reading some books about the meaning of life, life after death, blah blah. While some of these books were ridiculous and not one book convinced me of God or heaven or any of the things I learned in school, I did come to the conclusion that we are spiritual beings having a human experience in order to learn lessons and grow.
If you believe that you just live this life on earth and then die, or as long as you don't kill someone you will go to 'heaven' when you die, you will have a pretty crappy existence - especially if you have a child who dies or a house fire that destroys all your personal belongings or you get held up at gunpoint or lose your keys or get a bad haircut or have a cheating husband or miss your flight.
If you choose to get smarter when bad things happen as opposed to angrier or unchanged, you will enjoy life every day. Not every minute of every day. You're not a robot. But you will truly appreciate the lovely moments. You will become wise and calm and knowing.
Right now I believe that our souls leave our bodies when we die and move on to heaven (or its equivalent) and we meet the souls we knew before and perhaps we take all of our experience and move on into new bodies and keep on going. This makes sense to me because in this world, from the time we are children, people are on different levels, some smart and wise, others clueless or angry their entire lives.
But the best part of this knowledge is that I'm open to hearing other beliefs, other ideas, BUT only from happy, well-adjusted, non-violent people. If you're an atheist and your child died and you're still happy every day (and not on drugs!), I'd like to know why you're happy to wake up every morning and do it all over again. Call me:)
In the meantime, I'm going to assume that when bad things happen we should immediately appreciate all the good things we do have: friends, family, jobs, food to eat, a roof over our heads, the sun, music, eyesight, etc.. or any one of the above. We become more sympathetic to those who suffer the same losses.
We just become better.