Not Everything Is About You
One of the questions I ask myself whenever something difficult happens is:
“What is this trying to teach me?”
It’s a question that has helped me make sense of loss, disappointment, change and uncertainty. It reminds me that even painful experiences can become opportunities for growth.
But over time, I’ve realised there is another question that belongs beside it.
What if someone else is learning too?
We often move through life as though every experience exists to teach us something. And while there is almost always something we can learn, not every event is centred around our own development.
The people around us are living through their own lessons.
A partner may be learning about honesty.
A friend may be confronting grief.
A parent may be discovering the limits of control.
A colleague may be learning how to set boundaries.
Their lesson inevitably affects us.
Sometimes deeply.
Sometimes painfully.
Sometimes permanently.
That doesn’t mean we caused it.
And it doesn’t mean it was all about us.
One of the most compassionate realisations we can have is that we are not the only people growing.
Our lives intersect with countless others, each carrying their own fears, hopes, blind spots and transformations.
Sometimes we are the teacher.
Sometimes we are the student.
Sometimes we are simply standing nearby while someone else learns something that changes both of our lives.
Of course we can still ask,
“What can I learn from this?”
That question remains valuable.
But perhaps we can stop assuming that every difficult experience was designed exclusively for our own growth.
Sometimes another person’s lesson becomes part of our story.
Sometimes we are caught in the wake of someone else’s becoming.
There is freedom in recognising that.
Not because it removes our responsibility to learn.
But because it allows us to hold other people with greater compassion.
We stop asking,
“Why did they do this to me?”
And begin wondering,
“What might they have been learning?”
That doesn’t excuse harmful behaviour.
It doesn’t mean we tolerate what shouldn’t be tolerated.
But it does remind us that we are all living inside a shared human experience.
Growth is rarely solitary.
Our lessons overlap.
Our healing intersects.
Our lives become part of one another’s education.
Perhaps that is why compassion matters so much.
Because sometimes the most important thing to realise is that not everything is about you.
And somehow, that makes the world feel a little more connected.