Life’s Greatest Teachers Are the Ones We Never Ask For
1. The teachers nobody wants
Adversity, struggle, suffering, pain, grief, loss, defeat, failure, regret, heartbreak, rejection, loneliness, disappointment, betrayal, and uncertainty. Nobody wakes up excited to experience any of these things. We spend so much of our lives trying to avoid them. But looking back at my own life, I honestly don’t think anything has taught me more.
Two weeks ago, I was talking to my friend Becca about how some of the most interesting people I’ve met almost died when they were young. A car accident. A serious health issue. Something that made them question whether they were going to have a life anymore.
Some come back with a completely different perspective. Their priorities change. Things that once felt like the end of the world suddenly seem small. Being alive means something different after almost losing it.
2. Why these experiences teach us so much
I think these are our greatest teachers because they make us pay attention to things we can usually avoid. Someone can tell me a hundred times to appreciate my health or stop making a bad decision. But when I experience the consequences myself, that advice suddenly means something.
Failure shows me where my confidence got ahead of my understanding. Heartbreak shows me how attached I was and what I was willing to overlook. Grief makes the time I had with someone feel different. Struggle makes me find out what I do when life stops going my way.
These experiences also interrupt me. I have to stop long enough to question my choices and see what actually matters. That’s why they’ve taught me so much. The lesson becomes personal.
Of course, suffering doesn’t automatically make me wiser. I still have to look honestly at what happened. Otherwise, I can go through the same pain again and learn almost nothing.
3. When walking became something I had to learn again
When I was 22, I almost lost my life. I had taken a bunch of Xanax, and I was drinking and smoking weed. Then I got behind the wheel. I passed out on the highway, and a car hit me from behind at about 85 miles an hour.
I suffered a serious injury at C7 in my neck. For about a week, I lay in bed paralyzed from the neck down. Recovery took around six months, and I had to relearn how to walk. I couldn’t take showers for six months. My mom had to bathe me.
At 22, you’re supposed to be figuring out how to live on your own. I was depending on my mom to help me get clean. And I had put myself there. That’s a hard thing to sit with when you have a lot of time in bed to think.
Walking meant something different after I had to learn it again. Being able to take care of myself meant something different after I couldn’t.
But now, I barely think about it. I’m traveling, making plans, hanging out with friends. I can get frustrated over something small while standing on two legs I once had to relearn how to use.
How do you go through something that big and still need a reminder?
4. The weird amnesia of being human
Think about having a really bad sore throat. All you want is to swallow without pain. You’re thinking, if my throat would just feel normal, I’d be so happy.
Two weeks later, you’re eating, drinking, talking, and going about your day. How often do you stop and think, damn, I’m grateful my throat doesn’t hurt?
Probably almost never. You’ve already found something else to worry about.
I do the same thing with much bigger experiences. I remember what happened, but I lose touch with what it taught me. The memory stays. The appreciation gets quieter.
Maybe some of that forgetting helps us keep living. I don’t want to feel the fear of that accident every morning. But how do I let the pain fade and still remember why I was so grateful when it ended? How do I appreciate being able to walk without needing to lose it again?
5. I’ve hit rock bottom so many times I’m basically a geologist
At this point, I should have a degree in geology. I’ve hit rock bottom so many times I’m starting to study the rocks.
Every time I get there, I meet a version of myself I didn’t fully know before. The one who’s scared. The one who’s embarrassed. The one who has to admit he made the same mistake again, even after telling everyone how much he learned the last time.
When life is going well, I’m partying, running around the world, joking, laughing, hanging out with friends, dancing. I’m usually not stopping to ask why I do the things I do.
Rock bottom gives me more time with those questions. How did I get here? Who was I around? What was I chasing? What did I know deep down and choose to ignore?
Sometimes I already know the answers. I just haven’t wanted to say them out loud.
I wish I could say I always learn the lesson the first time. Obviously, the geology career suggests otherwise. But each time I really sit with what happened, I understand a little more about myself and what I need to change.
6. Seventeen years of journals tell on me
I have about 17 years of journal writing. Looking back, I can almost tell how my life was going by how much I wrote.
The years when I suffered the most have so much writing. I’m trying to understand what happened, how I feel, and what I’m going to do next.
Then there are years when I’m doing great, and there might be something like 17 pages for the entire year. I’m too busy living to write about living. The journal barely hears from me.
I don’t regret those happy years. Dancing, friendship, and traveling have taught me things too. But my hardest years leave behind a much more detailed record of who I was.
Sometimes I read an old entry and remember a version of myself I’d almost forgotten. From where I’m sitting now, some of what he was struggling with seems obvious. To him, it wasn’t.
It makes me wonder how much of what I understand today is something a younger version of me had to suffer to figure out. Maybe writing is one way I can stop forgetting what those versions of me learned.
7. Getting to paint another version of yourself
Becca and I talked about how, when you crawl out of rock bottom or survive something that could have killed you, you get a chance to draw a new version of yourself. Almost like painting someone you haven’t been yet.
You’ve seen where your old choices led. Now you get to question what you chase, who you spend time with, and what you keep repeating just because it’s familiar.
Sometimes I feel like the amount I’ve gotten to know myself is proportional to how much I’ve suffered. That isn’t a formula for everybody. Pain can overwhelm people, and understanding it can take help and a long time. But in my life, so much self-discovery came from periods I hated living through.
Learning those lessons young gave me more time to explore who else I could become. Almost dying at 22 left me years to try again. You can still reinvent yourself at 65. I’m just grateful I had that chance early, even though I haven’t always used it wisely.
I don’t want another accident to remind me that I like being alive. I’d like to hear those earlier versions of me while things are going well, before I’m back in a situation they already warned me about.
When I remember my mom bathing me at 22, I remember how much help it took to get back to an ordinary day.
I have ordinary days now. I can take a shower, get dressed, walk outside, and go dancing with my friends. At one point, getting back to those things was the whole goal.
I want to get better at remembering that while I’m doing them.
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