Why?

A gentleman and his lovely wife are upstanding citizens. They’re honest, work hard, and would do anything for their two kids. They never miss a Sunday at the Methodist church and help out at the soup kitchen on Saturday mornings. They’re healthy, happy members of their communities, rightfully loved and appreciated by their friends and families. One day, the man comes home and reveals to his spouse that he was let go from his software engineering position for a younger, less-experienced candidate who’s apparently gonna amp up the company with his youthful vitality, contrast collar shirt, and goatee. Meanwhile, the married couple has no idea what they’re going to do.

A twenty-five-year-old woman and her best friend are inseparable, the kind of pair that always knows what the other is up to. They finish each other’s sentences and know just what to say when one of them is having a hard time. An enormously edifying, loving relationship endures into adulthood. Then one day, during a typical coffee date, one of them reveals that she has acute leukemia. Six months later, that amazing, loyal friend, who never wished harm on anyone, passes away.

A young couple dresses up their six-year-old for another school day. They smile, and the husband puts his arm around his wife’s shoulder as their little girl trots off to the classroom. Pleased as can be with how their daughter’s growing up, exploring her small world, and coming into her childlike own, they consider themselves extremely lucky. Until later that morning, when a troubled young man breaks into the school with a Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle.

Eesh. Brutal. Things change in an instant, don’t they? Gosh, and it’s never at a convenient time, either. At different moments in our lives, we’re all like Sisyphus, pushing and pushing to reach that apex, that goal, however grandiose or modest it may be, and then things crash down. Whatever you’ve worked for, the life you’ve envisioned, has been ruthlessly shut down by outside forces, and in the meantime, the boulder lands directly on your head and stomps you into the ground.

Upon hearing some sad news a while back, I sat in bed and thought about the emotions that manifest themselves when life’s been mercilessly unfair to us, and, of course, these occurrences touch every inch of the spectrum: My teacher gave me an ‘F’ because she hates me. My beloved grandfather had a heart attack. Our son was born with special needs. He dumped me because I’m unpopular. Though we may have different opinions as to the significance of these examples, the principle stays the same: We didn’t deserve it.

(Okay, in some cases, we may deserve an ‘F’, but still…)

And to me, the question that bears heaviest on our minds is why. You picture it being screamed at the top of a woman’s lungs in cinematic fashion, or whispered into the moist hands of a man slumped over in his chair. We ask the question without really expecting an answer, because, well, an answer doesn’t come, at least not during that initial gut reaction to tragedy. For me, that scene in Forrest Gump comes to mind, when Forrest is cradling Bubba “by that river in Viet-nam,” and Bubba, trembling in his best good friend’s arms, looks Forrest square in the eye and asks, “Why’d this happen?” Of course, Forrest, being the straight talker that he is, simply says, “You got shot.”

“I would of thought of something better to say.”

While one person in the exchange gives that concrete reason for his friend’s situation, we can only imagine that what’s going through the other’s head is: Why’d this happen to me. It’s not about that specific chain of events leading up to death, failure, and sadness; it’s us wondering why on earth we were singled out as victims. The thought may occur to us for a brief moment before the gunshot wound takes us, or it may sit on our minds for longer periods of time, leading us to believe that there truly are uncontrollable powers against us, in the form of people, environments, or even God. Diabolical entities that have conspired toward no other goal than our downfall. Goodness, it hurts, doesn’t it? In my mind, there’s nothing worse.

And from there, what path do our psyches take? For many of us, we get angry. We become immensely pissed off at the people around us, our circumstances, and the anything-but-fair ways of the world. We break out our index fingers and look for potential targets of blame, and we don’t have to search very hard. Hell, it could be anyone’s fault. But, then, what follows our outward, jaded view? Perhaps we look inward and analyze the many specific instances in which we did wrong. We begin to blame ourselves ’cause clearly we’re crappy people who deserve everything we get, right?

It’s funny how we see the universe sometimes, isn’t it? As if there’s a giant scale that has to constantly balance out our good deeds and bad. When we’ve sinned one time too many, we’re due for some kind of retaliation. Or we take a step back and wonder: “But I’m such a nice guy. Why would this happen to me?” As if being morally upright and good to others is supposed to make us immune to disaster.

“I’ve even kept kosher just to be on the safe side.”

Alas, we all know the world doesn’t work this way. We’re reasonable enough to recognize that there’s no kind of metaphorical demerit system in the air that justifies punitive action for a person who hasn’t been faithful enough. So then the question of why shifts to the nitty gritty. Okay, what really caused this? Was it lack of gun control? Harmful chemicals in our food? Sub-standard healthcare? Incompetent security officials? Badly-lit streets? Poor lifestyle choices?

These questions deserve answers, but do they really change how we feel at the present moment? “Oh, Uncle Jim didn’t exercise enough. That’s why he died of heart disease.” You don’t just shrug it off after that. It doesn’t matter if the cause is plain as day, or if we “saw it coming” for years and years. It still happened, and there’s going to be that empty space in our hearts that longs for what we don’t have.

If it appears I’m narrowing human suffering down to a convenient formula, I’m not, nor am I claiming, by any stretch of the imagination, to understand what each and every person goes through. Everyone’s different, and everyone copes with hard times in their own way. But how do we get past it all? I mean, throughout human history, people have persevered through countless, unimaginable hardships, and the stories we often hear are the inspirational ones. Dostoyevsky conceived the idea for Crime and Punishment after gambling away much of his fortune. Creed’s Scott Stapp wrote Torn after he was kicked out of Lee College, living in an apartment with almost nothing. You ever heard the testimony of a former addict? In 2007, I got to listen to two women – one with a constant stream of tears rolling down her face – from Magdalene House in Nashville speak of ruthless circumstances from an early age. Unprovoked and undeserved, these ladies suffered endless psychological and physical abuse, with nothing to turn to but drugs, alcohol, and prostitution. However, despite all that, they’re now sober and completely independent. If “Why me?” had been the only – and unanswerable – question these people asked, what would their situation be now?

The world isn’t fair, and the sooner we recognize that, the more constructive we can be. This is not to create the image of a bleak, merciless planet earth that dishes out dysentery to jungle children and lets rich jagoffs buy their second Hummers (I mean, he needed a blue one.). It’s to acknowledge the fact, however hard it may be, that these things occur. What has befallen you, whether it was in your control or not, happened. It went down at some point in time, there’s nothing you can do to change it, and if you let it define your emotions, actions, and lot in life, you’re effed.

What you can do is learn, and focus on today and the days ahead. It’s not a simple process, and no one can expect to feel better tomorrow, or the next day. Nonetheless, walking through the hurt, embracing the fellowship of family and friends, and laboring on in the face of such unfairness are well worth it, and say a hell of a lot about you. Give me a friend or colleague who’s jumped some hurdles over one who’s always had it easy any day.

And while I can’t provide a 12-step program on how to overcome all adversity, I can say that dwelling on the “Why?” isn’t going to take you very far.