When I look back on all my major heartbreaks, I realize that they needed to happen.
Of course, back then when I was busy crying my eyes out or wishing that I could hit myself over the head with a sledgehammer so that I’d have amnesia and forget the pain or wondering if I could somehow separate my heart from the rest of my body so that it would stop torturing the rest of me, I could not see how that experience could possibly benefit me.
But as time passed and healed the wounds, and I could see things objectively, that’s when everything made sense, like a picture that used to be pressed up against my face which I could not see completely until I stood a bit of a distance away.
I needed to get broken up with. I needed to fail the board exam. I needed to be a failure at previous jobs. I did not think I deserved them then, but I am so happy they happened now. All the things that cause me pain, they are happening for a purpose.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
-Steve Jobs