What does it mean? you get to choose.

​Life happens. Then we assign meeting to what just happened.

That's the order.

Always.

It's an overlooked superpower, this capacity we have to assign hopeful meanings to things that happen in life, to the things that people say and do, meanings that will lift us and not bury us.

It's easy to believe negative things happen to us in life. But did negative things really happen, or did we assign negative meanings to the things that happened?

I'm not trying to dismiss the reality that some really difficult things happen to people. But looking through the lens of my own life, I can see a pattern of instinctually and habitually assigning negative meaning to things I've had the power to assign more hopeful meanings to.

Meanings that treated me more like a friend than an enemy.

I have faced rejection in life. I have often assigned a meaning to rejection that told me I was unwanted or unworthy. But what if that meaning is redirection and not rejection. What if the meaning is actually that there is something better suited for me ahead?

I have faced criticism in my life. I have often assigned a meaning to criticism that told me I'm not good enough. But what if that meaning is guidance. A guide toward an opportunity to learn and improve, or to determine the critic isn't a reliable judge of my goodness.

I have witnessed the success of others in my life. I have often assigned a meaning to that success that told me I'm falling behind. But what if that meaning is not that I'm falling behind, but that I'm being shown the way?

I have heard people speak negatively of me. I have often assigned a meaning to that negativity that told me everyone thinks poorly of me. What if that meaning is actually that I poorly pick the people I listen to?

I have faced significant challenges in my life. I have often assigned a meaning to those challenges that told me I can't handle any more of this. What if that meaning is actually that I'm being prepared to handle more than I ever imagined I could handle?

I have faced divorce in my life. I have often assigned meaning to that divorce that told me I am a failure at relationships. What if that meaning is actually about the success I've been prepared for in my next relationship?

Maybe you get the point here, the meaning.

Maybe you are being introduced to your own superpower.

The power to stop and ask yourself on the other side of life happening, what meaning do I want to assign to the life that just happened?

Because we have that power, we have that choice, we get to decide what everything in life means.

Will that make life easy? I doubt it.

But will it potentially allow you to assign meanings to life that allow you to go easier on yourself, that allow you to look at life through the lens of possibility and not defeat? I think so.

Stop and ask yourself today, what does this mean? Then answer that with the most hopeful answer possible.

You have the power to do that.