A few years ago, I started to replace "everything happens for a reason" with "there is something to be learned from every experience" or "growth/insight can come from every experience." It may be less catchy but it feels more accurate and less divine-providence-y to me. It also feels less presumptuous and insensitive to say when something horrific happens (rape, terminal illness, death). I don't believe that horrific things happen for a reason but I do believe that lessons can be learned from them. Anyway, I thought I'd share the reframe in case it resonated with you, Nathaniel, or with anyone else. Thanks for your videos. I really enjoy them.
I prefer "everything hapens for a cause" instead of reason. There is a cause, but it doesn't mean there is something smart behind it. And yes, I'm metaphysically saavy and quite spiritual........but I still see these ideas used to gaslight human experience. Usually hinging upon the idea that there are external "higher" authorities (whether soul/higher self whatever) that have a "perfect" reason for things happening. I've tried finding meaning and a "lesson" in many situations for yeeears.....and found nothing. People have to take back DISCERNMENT and apply it to everything, specially these big world views.
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards" - Soren Kierkegaard One of my favorite things in life is having the privilege to reflect back on things in order to gain a greater understanding as to why things happened a certain way.
As a cancer patient I couldn’t agree more. My life has always been difficult - rough childhood, various illnesses and a lot of hospitalisation/dr. visits, loneliness, and missing a lot of highlights that should have happened in my life until now. But I do know that nothing is random. I do know that my illnesses were determined by my unprocessed trauma and my lack of courage to take some radical decisions and even some family karma. This is a more spiritual view, but I think that we are here to grow as a soul. And yes, in my case I had to be born in poverty and go through many hardships, because this is how I will grow into the person I want to become. For some this might sound too idealistic, but this is the perspective that feels right for me. We all have the power of choice in this life. You can either use your story as a reason for why you will never have a great life, or you can use it as a reason to why you will definitely have a great life. A lot of random and horrible things can happen to us. But life is all about how we respond to them and how we use the cards we were dealt. Life is not supposed to be fair. Life is supposed to be lived. Love your content, Nathaniel!
BS. But I read the same books you did, so I know where you are coming from. People have to cling to SOME form of enpowerment...even if the prespective has holes in it. Peopel who believe that can't even define "soul growth"....or explain why the particular experience is FUNDAMENTAL to achieve that goal. But as always.....people don't think they are reponsible for the impact their prespective has in the collective.
@jeanlundi2141 Hi, Jean. From my perspective, soul growth means learning good values, including the wisdom to choose what type of principles we should apply in a certain situation. During hard times I didn't always understand why it had to go that way, but eventually, I saw that I was being prepared for the next step. But I also know that we aren't always prepared for bad situations. I don't think God wants us to suffer, but we do end up making the wrong choices which lead to suffering because we need more time to learn a lesson. But since you think that we have no power over our lives, you decided to think like a victim. Why do you think your perspective is better for the collective than mine?
I absolutely believe everything happens for a reason. Everything I have ever gone through, and I have gone through quite enough, has always revealed its reason in time. There was one thing I was puzzling over for years, why I had to go through a specific heart wrenching trauma. And then 9 years later, a few weeks ago, I discovered the reason. And just like that I became so grateful for every despicable moment I suffered in that specific year. Because the life trajectory I am currently on now, would not have been possible without that thing happening first. Everything happens for a reason. I love this message.
Hey, Nathaniel! After a couple years of being a genuine follower of your story-telling history in YT, I realized how much I have changed thanks to your words. In this specific scenario, I feel as If I was speaking in front of the camera, for I have learned that nothing is earned or caused purely by major deities or powers; and that everything meaningful, and good, comes along with a price. It is not about delusional or blind to negativity, but courageous enough to keep fighting demons with a wide smirk no matter the case. I have indeed grown up and you had too. We all do at the end of the day, and, in the meantime, we make mistakes. The lesson is always there is you seek to open yourself to failure and opportunities. Then your sight of living something fulfilling changes forever. We have been given a life and the least we can do to pay the universe off is to be extraordinarily good at living ---and that, that comes with difficulties for sure. See you next time, master. :)
Hi Nathan, I like the way you think. I can relate to many of your thoughts on life. But I grew up in a poor country, so I can never agree with the idea that everything happens for a reason. This is a VERY romantic and perhaps naive way of seeing life, there is a huge amount of things and “shit” that happen outside of our control, especially traumas…
Thank you for sharing and I am genuinely curious to hear more: do you feel that being born where you were was entirely random/bad luck/did not happen for a reason?
@@nobackupplan I can open up for discussion, but I can not see a reason here, only inequality, there is no reason for you to be born in an underdeveloped and poor country. For example, people who are born in Ivory Coast can grow cocoa all their lives but do not have the money to buy it ever. What is your reason for living? To grow cocoa so that the West can buy it at ridiculous prices, leaving you and your country in poverty while the rest of the world enjoys that delicious chocolate that you may have never heard of, since you earn $2 a day if you are lucky. Creating a vicious circle of poverty. Or a girl who may have been born in a rich country, but for some reason suffers some kind of harassment. So, she may not leave her house for months or years because of this trauma, destroying her life. And again, there is no reason for this to happen, but the world can be a nightmare for some people, for absolutely no reason.
@@ip.edro.channel I would venture to say there's no grand "reason" for anything in this life, rather there is a lesson to be learned always. I think that's a really important distinction to make. Someone born into abject poverty didn't "deserve" it, it wasn't life's "grand plan", it's a bad set of circumstances entirely out of their control. What they can control, however, is their perspective on the life they live. Being able to glean a lesson from a situation and leverage that lesson is a skill, and a very very hard one to learn, at that. The person born into the cocoa farm may be able to find their reason for living through a perspective of resilience. The girl being harassed may be able to learn the psychology of her aggressors and use that understanding to overcome her situation. *None* of this is easy or obvious or common, and it doesn't change the reality of the adversity of anyones situation, but the ability to step outside ones self and say "What's the lesson here?" or "How can I use this to make my life better?" is universally a tremendous skill to work on, and I think more or less that's what Nathaniel is saying here.
Just an example: I fell in love with a house that was supposedly already sold. I told the owner that he was going to sell me the house because he was going to get so tired of being told how many things needed to be fixed! A week later he called and sold me the house! I have lived here for 17 years now and loved every minute! Sometimes you can almost bend reality to your will!
:41 "Everything happens for a reason" has always viscerally offended me because it implicitly discounts the pain of the MANY people (including children) who never get to enjoy the happy character arc of coming to the other side extreme suffering. Children who die at the hands of abusive parents is one example of many that comes to mind. 😢 I try to talk myself down from this by telling myself to be happy for those who've been gifted with factors that promote resilience or shielded from the true horrors in the world and try to forgive them their blinders. To me, it's respectful of others' experience and sufficiently inspiring that humans are capable of CREATING meaning out of suffering. 💖
Finding my voice online in making a channel and accepting the struggle makes a story better definitely helps me cope with difficulties, I resonate with that.
"pain shapes you"..yes! Thank you for being so authentically vulnerable in how you make each of your videos. Your sincere humanity is beautiful to behold. It's so good to know there are people like you that live on this planet and share themselves. Hopefully this will help more of us to do the same! Blessings to you!
I believe that there's no such thing as 'bad events', they're simply good stories. This video couldn't have come at a better time for me. Received bad news last month - didn't get into the universities I wanted, which has changed my whole trajectory. Really hope this is my origin story...
Good morning! 🌤Long time follower because I enjoy the deep conversations you have with us that gives us pause to think, consider, reassess. While I do believe in cause and effect, the phrase everything happens for a reason is a pet peeve of mine. I feel it has been reduced to a trite platitude. I could never say to anyone suffering horrors around the world that everything happens for a reason. But in my safe corner of the world I can reflect upon Aristotle...every event that happens in your life is an opportunity for you to grow and learn. With love from 🇨🇦
I think your “forceful will” is something that can be so inspiring to so many of us, though I’m sure you have to wrestle with it from time to time. As long as you’re learning from each experience, I believe you’ll continue to weave a beautiful journey. Also, WE LOVE THE NEWSLETTER!!!
My parents and family members survived genocide and starvation that caused immense trauma and pain for everyone in our family. Even with all they went through, and the personally hard things that have happened to me (especially as of late) I do believe things happen for a reason. They made me who I am and put me on the path I am now with the people who are in it now. Sometimes that death or moment triggers something in you. Your old self dies and you become a different person because of the experience that truly makes you reconsider who you were and who you want to be. That’s if you truly feel and process what you are going through rather than never sitting with it. People say hard times make you stronger, and sometimes they do, but sometimes what they do is make your bonds with the people/community stronger. I don’t think everything happens for a reason means everything is not in our control, but that meaning can be created by us as individuals or as a community from every moment and that’s an empowering thing.
Unfortunately, sometimes it’s just impossible to fully relate, especially when you live next to Russia. Three days ago, in my native city of Lviv, almost an entire family died: three daughters (21, 18, and 7 years old) and their mother, due to heavy Russian shelling. Only the father survived due to the unimaginable consequences. Now, I can’t even understand how he could embrace ‘Amor Fati’; it seems impossible… I heard all those explosions, and it makes me so scared that it could have been my family.
I love listening to Nathaniel’s insights - as a critical autoethnographer in my academic research, I get to hear his critical account of being a young man grappling with his identity and his place in the world (thanks, mate!) but I agree with the echos of a lot of the women/enby people on here. The distance between macro atrocity, and micro experience is actually a lot closer for people of different identity intersections. I would offer that every experience is meaningful - that meaning is up to personal interpretation and integration. We need these conversations ❤ x
I relate to what you said about the storyteller. It helps you kinda zoom out and wait for the meaning to show down the line. In other words „every heartbreak is a poem.“ 😜
I've just went trough a situation where I felt like you described Nathaniel. And I realized the only thing I can do is to choose to believe "This is how it should be no matter how much I think it's not. I choose to believe this is the best for me and my kid". And now days later it is slowly shown to me that it was the truth and I was stressing for no reason instead peacefully watching how thigs are setting for our good. I talked about that mindset in one of my videos, but when I faced it was a struggle....then I remembered and accepted. :)
All we can ever do is figure out our own reality. We have no way to know how the reality of others is for their own purpose. Even when horrible things happen, there is purpose for those involved and for the world as a whole. We and everything are of one whole mysterious energy.
I litteraly started watching crying. You left me with a new sense of calm and certainly wiser and stronger. I'll accept what I face and it will help me seeing the bigger picture. All it takes is time.
I believe the fact that we choose our response in every situation fits more into what you're describing. I believe once we choose to see the lesson in our encounters, we take back the power over our lives. Yes, we cannot be accountable for everything that happens to us but our response makes all the difference. I believe that's a better way of seeing as everything happening for a reason.
This past year of my life has been the hardest barrage of non-stop bullshit I have ever been through, resulting in me losing nearly everything I ever worked for or made of my life. It's sunk me to the lowest point I've ever been in, and the only thing I've been able to hold onto is the thought of "What is the lesson / opportunity here?" It certainly doesn't always help, actually it probably helps less often than it does help. But, being able to find a silver lining, even if you're just pulling it out of your ass as a desperate attempt at coping, can - at the very least - allow room for introspection and self awareness in an otherwise entirely out-of-your-control situation. It certainly isn't a silver bullet, but I think having even brief moments to reflect and reason can be foundational building blocks for a much stronger future.
I just wanted to let you know: More than with any other online person, I have this feeling when watching your videos, that I would love to be able to call you a friend. Many of your videos actually have made it into my "masterpieces" playlist where I store the most precious videos I have ever watched. Have a great day!
It's always interesting seeing someone's face transmit the weights life has piled on them, and double so if this suffering is done in silence and you can only sense the subtle pulses of the inner strength that has grown within them. I find it endearing because it's like a ping from someone else's matrix that you're not alone cause this matrix has been encoded with suffering as its base code. life's beautiful but it sucks too, and it sucks for a lot of us. all we can do is move forward with our scars as the trophies of our time in this matrix.
resonate w u Nathan! i also have this idea of 'there's no lesson, only life to be lived'. it might sound counterintuitive at first but it's pretty much amor fati but even further to the point where even when there doesn't seem to be any lesson (yet or ever), there's still some... idk, meaning (?) to just keep going and keep living? because sometimes for me there can be pressure to find lesson in everything but most often i find such lessons to come unexpectedly or when I'm not seeking it so hardly (or often when i let go of the need for reason, that's when it actually pops up)-and i find it helpful to take it easy and accept that i might not catch the lesson consciously (bcs 'lessons' could be subconscious, we're not aware of) if ever. but even so it does feel shitty anyway in the moment-but yeah :)
Everyone goes through things Nathaniel. As Angelina Jolie say, “you must go through the center of the storm and face it head on. Only then will you be able to come through to the other side. You are a wonderful human being. Hang in there.
So it is the reverse: you can build a reason for everything that happens to you. And that retrospective making sense of the difficult moments will help you build a better future.
There sure is. Switching our thinking to embracing the rough waters (negative experiences) is what will really grow you as a person. Just know that it happens to everyone and you need to decide how you will face it. Will you grow from it or let it destroy you.
It's such a nice belief, I have it too. It's especially funny to see it in a karmic sense - i cut someone off in a line and few seconds later someone cuts me off. It always reminds me that life is a mirror and whatever you do good or bad it returns back to you in a different form but same frequency.
Every experience is a step on our path to wisdom. As Heraclitus observed, 'The only constant in life is change.' Embrace each moment as a lesson, for they collectively shape our journey and growth.
Where things are allowed to come together naturally, where there isn't one dominant and obtrusive force (Hitler), they will, and they will have been meant to. Example: you start a new job and start talking to someone. It feels very natural and maybe you're going through something similar so you can learn a lot from each other. It happened because you two were dynamic, there was chemistry, something new could be gained for the both of you. This natural chemistry still work on micro levels such as interpersonal relationships where dominant and obtrusive forces don't get as much power. However, on many levels we do have dominant and obtrusive forces that are trying to impose their willl on full ecosystems, destroying all the micro level chemistry. Maybe there are macro level lessons to be learned from dominant wills getting too much influence, such as, basic human rights and not letting despots have power. This doesnt take away from the fact that the micro level chemistry got obstructed during their rule. Another example: I live in a democratic country where I'm allowed to try different things in all levels of my life and feel what's wrong and what's right. In another country despot parents choose who you're going to spend your life with and despot leaders choose where your workforce should be applied, maybe even at war with another country. These big wills don't respect other wills. From a cognitive science perspective (my education), these powerfull forces can also get people working together and the lack of them can make people individualistic to a narcisistic degree. So, from my point of view everything happens for a reasons, doesn't mean it's either good or bad since you can find good and bad in every situation, just on different levels of analysis. Anyway, just rambled about a train of thoughts and thought I might share it. It felt right, but I'm sure some things are wrong. Where I live, racism is treated as a joke to a large extent today, and maybe, everything in the history of the world had to happen for us to get here.
i completely agree with you. I think people are getting confused here. Obviously you're not talking about extreme situations, where people don't have access to their basic needs or face great suffering from political and social reasons. In those cases it must be impossible to find meaning. The problem is people in privileged lives can get lost in the "victim role" (I don't know if this expression exists in english, I'm just translating it from portuguese). It's easy to just keep asking "why did this happen" and continue to suffer, feeling like the we're always the victms. But if we try to take something out of it, instead of just regret or shame, we can feel much better. We can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we feel about it.
For me, "everything happens for a reason" is insular reasoning. Children are abused and murdered. People are traumatised and suffer. Survival may be life-long struggle. Enjoy beautiful moments. They can be earned, predictable, random, but they are not inevitable. If they were - then suffering could be justified as a stepping stone towards a beautiful moment. Think of how empowering that reasoning is for abusers. You don't have to suffer to realise this. Just look at the world.
Playing Devil’s advocate here. Everything happens due to some reason, not necessarily for one. I would argue there isn’t always a lesson in every situation. Take sexual assault, for example. This is a common occurrence and very little is to be learned by the victim nor the assaulter when they get away with it. I think there are likely countless examples of things happening for no particular reason with little tangible value post-event.
So it would nice to know ow what happened to you? Must have been a failed endeavor? I watch your videos all the time and love listening to you perspective.
I disagree. I went through an ectopic pregnancy that almost killed me, assault, harassment, injuries, and illnesses. I don't feel stronger after going through that; I feel fearful and unhappy. I think you are still young and are romanticizing life in a way that will make it difficult for you to handle suffering in the future.
I totally agree. having the fortune to live in a good country, travel freely, and work remotely with zero care and zero troubles doesn't mean you have the full experience and that you're equipped to advise on and teach people about life and keep uploading the same vague faux wisdom videos about your unique perspective on life. it's just redundant
I totally agree. having the fortune to live in a good country, travel freely, and work remotely with zero care and zero troubles doesn't mean you have the full experience and that you're equipped to advise on and teach people about life and keep uploading the same vague faux wisdom videos about your unique perspective on life. it's just redundant
I wholeheartedly relate to your sentiment. I lost a pregnancy at 18 weeks; labored for 14 hours; had an uncontrolled fever; and my placenta refused to separate from my uterine wall. This loss was excruciating, but does not compare to the harm inflicted on me by others. When I was Nathaniel’s age, I very much saw the world in a similar fashion; and it did not lift me up or support me when I experienced harm from the government. It did not prepare me in any way to reconcile cultural lies, including but not limited to, “everything happens for a reason.” For those that believe this, it will destroy you, as it has me, or it will be the fuel you need to overcome. One size does not fit all. And I feel that’s the only truth we need to submit to.
I beg to differ! I think he comes across as very together and organized! It's just that the artistic soul is always searching. But there is definitely method there.
I adore you however this was not one of your better videos. It was just too vague. I’m almost 66 so have seen my fair share of heartbreak, not getting actual details of your failure, makes your story much less impactful. Not too worry, I’ll keep viewing, maybe just a blip from your otherwise very insightful meanderings.
A few years ago, I started to replace "everything happens for a reason" with "there is something to be learned from every experience" or "growth/insight can come from every experience." It may be less catchy but it feels more accurate and less divine-providence-y to me. It also feels less presumptuous and insensitive to say when something horrific happens (rape, terminal illness, death). I don't believe that horrific things happen for a reason but I do believe that lessons can be learned from them. Anyway, I thought I'd share the reframe in case it resonated with you, Nathaniel, or with anyone else. Thanks for your videos. I really enjoy them.
I really like that way of putting it! If fact I like this so much I'm retitling the video to this (so credit to you!)
Agree with you 100%. My biggest lesson learnt so far is "always trust your gut instinct".
Love this reframing 👍
I prefer "everything hapens for a cause" instead of reason. There is a cause, but it doesn't mean there is something smart behind it. And yes, I'm metaphysically saavy and quite spiritual........but I still see these ideas used to gaslight human experience. Usually hinging upon the idea that there are external "higher" authorities (whether soul/higher self whatever) that have a "perfect" reason for things happening. I've tried finding meaning and a "lesson" in many situations for yeeears.....and found nothing.
People have to take back DISCERNMENT and apply it to everything, specially these big world views.
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards" - Soren Kierkegaard
One of my favorite things in life is having the privilege to reflect back on things in order to gain a greater understanding as to why things happened a certain way.
It’s like Viktor Frankl says in Man’s Search for Meaning, “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” 💫
“Not everything is a lesson, sometimes you just fail”
As a cancer patient I couldn’t agree more. My life has always been difficult - rough childhood, various illnesses and a lot of hospitalisation/dr. visits, loneliness, and missing a lot of highlights that should have happened in my life until now. But I do know that nothing is random. I do know that my illnesses were determined by my unprocessed trauma and my lack of courage to take some radical decisions and even some family karma. This is a more spiritual view, but I think that we are here to grow as a soul. And yes, in my case I had to be born in poverty and go through many hardships, because this is how I will grow into the person I want to become.
For some this might sound too idealistic, but this is the perspective that feels right for me. We all have the power of choice in this life. You can either use your story as a reason for why you will never have a great life, or you can use it as a reason to why you will definitely have a great life. A lot of random and horrible things can happen to us. But life is all about how we respond to them and how we use the cards we were dealt. Life is not supposed to be fair. Life is supposed to be lived.
Love your content, Nathaniel!
Beautiful reflection and bringing up the power in choice.
BS. But I read the same books you did, so I know where you are coming from. People have to cling to SOME form of enpowerment...even if the prespective has holes in it. Peopel who believe that can't even define "soul growth"....or explain why the particular experience is FUNDAMENTAL to achieve that goal.
But as always.....people don't think they are reponsible for the impact their prespective has in the collective.
@jeanlundi2141 Hi, Jean. From my perspective, soul growth means learning good values, including the wisdom to choose what type of principles we should apply in a certain situation. During hard times I didn't always understand why it had to go that way, but eventually, I saw that I was being prepared for the next step. But I also know that we aren't always prepared for bad situations. I don't think God wants us to suffer, but we do end up making the wrong choices which lead to suffering because we need more time to learn a lesson. But since you think that we have no power over our lives, you decided to think like a victim. Why do you think your perspective is better for the collective than mine?
I absolutely believe everything happens for a reason. Everything I have ever gone through, and I have gone through quite enough, has always revealed its reason in time. There was one thing I was puzzling over for years, why I had to go through a specific heart wrenching trauma. And then 9 years later, a few weeks ago, I discovered the reason. And just like that I became so grateful for every despicable moment I suffered in that specific year. Because the life trajectory I am currently on now, would not have been possible without that thing happening first. Everything happens for a reason. I love this message.
Hey, Nathaniel!
After a couple years of being a genuine follower of your story-telling history in YT, I realized how much I have changed thanks to your words. In this specific scenario, I feel as If I was speaking in front of the camera, for I have learned that nothing is earned or caused purely by major deities or powers; and that everything meaningful, and good, comes along with a price. It is not about delusional or blind to negativity, but courageous enough to keep fighting demons with a wide smirk no matter the case.
I have indeed grown up and you had too. We all do at the end of the day, and, in the meantime, we make mistakes. The lesson is always there is you seek to open yourself to failure and opportunities. Then your sight of living something fulfilling changes forever. We have been given a life and the least we can do to pay the universe off is to be extraordinarily good at living ---and that, that comes with difficulties for sure.
See you next time, master. :)
I agree. Acceptance is hard but it’s necessary for growth
Hi Nathan, I like the way you think. I can relate to many of your thoughts on life. But I grew up in a poor country, so I can never agree with the idea that everything happens for a reason. This is a VERY romantic and perhaps naive way of seeing life, there is a huge amount of things and “shit” that happen outside of our control, especially traumas…
Thank you for sharing and I am genuinely curious to hear more: do you feel that being born where you were was entirely random/bad luck/did not happen for a reason?
@@nobackupplan I can open up for discussion, but I can not see a reason here, only inequality, there is no reason for you to be born in an underdeveloped and poor country. For example, people who are born in Ivory Coast can grow cocoa all their lives but do not have the money to buy it ever. What is your reason for living? To grow cocoa so that the West can buy it at ridiculous prices, leaving you and your country in poverty while the rest of the world enjoys that delicious chocolate that you may have never heard of, since you earn $2 a day if you are lucky. Creating a vicious circle of poverty. Or a girl who may have been born in a rich country, but for some reason suffers some kind of harassment. So, she may not leave her house for months or years because of this trauma, destroying her life. And again, there is no reason for this to happen, but the world can be a nightmare for some people, for absolutely no reason.
@@ip.edro.channel I would venture to say there's no grand "reason" for anything in this life, rather there is a lesson to be learned always. I think that's a really important distinction to make. Someone born into abject poverty didn't "deserve" it, it wasn't life's "grand plan", it's a bad set of circumstances entirely out of their control. What they can control, however, is their perspective on the life they live. Being able to glean a lesson from a situation and leverage that lesson is a skill, and a very very hard one to learn, at that. The person born into the cocoa farm may be able to find their reason for living through a perspective of resilience. The girl being harassed may be able to learn the psychology of her aggressors and use that understanding to overcome her situation. *None* of this is easy or obvious or common, and it doesn't change the reality of the adversity of anyones situation, but the ability to step outside ones self and say "What's the lesson here?" or "How can I use this to make my life better?" is universally a tremendous skill to work on, and I think more or less that's what Nathaniel is saying here.
I'm a big fan of your newsletter and thoughly enjoy reading them on the train to and from the city. They make the trip go by quickly
Just an example: I fell in love with a house that was supposedly already sold. I told the owner that he was going to sell me the house because he was going to get so tired of being told how many things needed to be fixed! A week later he called and sold me the house! I have lived here for 17 years now and loved every minute! Sometimes you can almost bend reality to your will!
:41 "Everything happens for a reason" has always viscerally offended me because it implicitly discounts the pain of the MANY people (including children) who never get to enjoy the happy character arc of coming to the other side extreme suffering. Children who die at the hands of abusive parents is one example of many that comes to mind. 😢 I try to talk myself down from this by telling myself to be happy for those who've been gifted with factors that promote resilience or shielded from the true horrors in the world and try to forgive them their blinders.
To me, it's respectful of others' experience and sufficiently inspiring that humans are capable of CREATING meaning out of suffering. 💖
Finding my voice online in making a channel and accepting the struggle makes a story better definitely helps me cope with difficulties, I resonate with that.
"pain shapes you"..yes! Thank you for being so authentically vulnerable in how you make each of your videos. Your sincere humanity is beautiful to behold. It's so good to know there are people like you that live on this planet and share themselves. Hopefully this will help more of us to do the same! Blessings to you!
I appreciate your honesty and transparency. You appear to me to be a good man.
I believe that there's no such thing as 'bad events', they're simply good stories. This video couldn't have come at a better time for me. Received bad news last month - didn't get into the universities I wanted, which has changed my whole trajectory. Really hope this is my origin story...
Good morning! 🌤Long time follower because I enjoy the deep conversations you have with us that gives us pause to think, consider, reassess. While I do believe in cause and effect, the phrase everything happens for a reason is a pet peeve of mine. I feel it has been reduced to a trite platitude. I could never say to anyone suffering horrors around the world that everything happens for a reason. But in my safe corner of the world I can reflect upon Aristotle...every event that happens in your life is an opportunity for you to grow and learn.
With love from 🇨🇦
I think your “forceful will” is something that can be so inspiring to so many of us, though I’m sure you have to wrestle with it from time to time. As long as you’re learning from each experience, I believe you’ll continue to weave a beautiful journey. Also, WE LOVE THE NEWSLETTER!!!
My parents and family members survived genocide and starvation that caused immense trauma and pain for everyone in our family. Even with all they went through, and the personally hard things that have happened to me (especially as of late) I do believe things happen for a reason. They made me who I am and put me on the path I am now with the people who are in it now. Sometimes that death or moment triggers something in you. Your old self dies and you become a different person because of the experience that truly makes you reconsider who you were and who you want to be. That’s if you truly feel and process what you are going through rather than never sitting with it. People say hard times make you stronger, and sometimes they do, but sometimes what they do is make your bonds with the people/community stronger. I don’t think everything happens for a reason means everything is not in our control, but that meaning can be created by us as individuals or as a community from every moment and that’s an empowering thing.
Unfortunately, sometimes it’s just impossible to fully relate, especially when you live next to Russia. Three days ago, in my native city of Lviv, almost an entire family died: three daughters (21, 18, and 7 years old) and their mother, due to heavy Russian shelling. Only the father survived due to the unimaginable consequences. Now, I can’t even understand how he could embrace ‘Amor Fati’; it seems impossible…
I heard all those explosions, and it makes me so scared that it could have been my family.
I am so sorry to hear that, this video more applicable to problems in normal life. I wish you and onces around you do well.
St Olga will be with you all, @UlianaKuntii. ❤🙏🏽
I love listening to Nathaniel’s insights - as a critical autoethnographer in my academic research, I get to hear his critical account of being a young man grappling with his identity and his place in the world (thanks, mate!) but I agree with the echos of a lot of the women/enby people on here. The distance between macro atrocity, and micro experience is actually a lot closer for people of different identity intersections. I would offer that every experience is meaningful - that meaning is up to personal interpretation and integration. We need these conversations ❤ x
I relate to what you said about the storyteller. It helps you kinda zoom out and wait for the meaning to show down the line. In other words „every heartbreak is a poem.“ 😜
Life is a process of learning, which also includes suffering, but it is up to us to understand how to face situations and take the good from them.
Good to see you back. There's a real reflexion through your experience. I'll keep "pain shapes you" couldn't be more true
I've just went trough a situation where I felt like you described Nathaniel. And I realized the only thing I can do is to choose to believe "This is how it should be no matter how much I think it's not. I choose to believe this is the best for me and my kid". And now days later it is slowly shown to me that it was the truth and I was stressing for no reason instead peacefully watching how thigs are setting for our good. I talked about that mindset in one of my videos, but when I faced it was a struggle....then I remembered and accepted. :)
All we can ever do is figure out our own reality. We have no way to know how the reality of others is for their own purpose. Even when horrible things happen, there is purpose for those involved and for the world as a whole. We and everything are of one whole mysterious energy.
I litteraly started watching crying. You left me with a new sense of calm and certainly wiser and stronger. I'll accept what I face and it will help me seeing the bigger picture. All it takes is time.
Or: “We have two lives: the life we learn with and the life we live after that." From the 1984 movie The Natural by Bernard Malamud.
I agree things happen for a reason but I also see how other have a different perspective on this.
I believe the fact that we choose our response in every situation fits more into what you're describing. I believe once we choose to see the lesson in our encounters, we take back the power over our lives. Yes, we cannot be accountable for everything that happens to us but our response makes all the difference. I believe that's a better way of seeing as everything happening for a reason.
This past year of my life has been the hardest barrage of non-stop bullshit I have ever been through, resulting in me losing nearly everything I ever worked for or made of my life. It's sunk me to the lowest point I've ever been in, and the only thing I've been able to hold onto is the thought of "What is the lesson / opportunity here?" It certainly doesn't always help, actually it probably helps less often than it does help. But, being able to find a silver lining, even if you're just pulling it out of your ass as a desperate attempt at coping, can - at the very least - allow room for introspection and self awareness in an otherwise entirely out-of-your-control situation. It certainly isn't a silver bullet, but I think having even brief moments to reflect and reason can be foundational building blocks for a much stronger future.
This video was so real & totally felt the emotion in it… on an unrelated note, that color looks so good on you!! LOL😅
I just wanted to let you know: More than with any other online person, I have this feeling when watching your videos, that I would love to be able to call you a friend. Many of your videos actually have made it into my "masterpieces" playlist where I store the most precious videos I have ever watched. Have a great day!
It's always interesting seeing someone's face transmit the weights life has piled on them, and double so if this suffering is done in silence and you can only sense the subtle pulses of the inner strength that has grown within them. I find it endearing because it's like a ping from someone else's matrix that you're not alone cause this matrix has been encoded with suffering as its base code. life's beautiful but it sucks too, and it sucks for a lot of us. all we can do is move forward with our scars as the trophies of our time in this matrix.
I came for the Bokah. I stayed for the audio quality, the light, and the background.
resonate w u Nathan! i also have this idea of 'there's no lesson, only life to be lived'. it might sound counterintuitive at first but it's pretty much amor fati but even further to the point where even when there doesn't seem to be any lesson (yet or ever), there's still some... idk, meaning (?) to just keep going and keep living? because sometimes for me there can be pressure to find lesson in everything but most often i find such lessons to come unexpectedly or when I'm not seeking it so hardly (or often when i let go of the need for reason, that's when it actually pops up)-and i find it helpful to take it easy and accept that i might not catch the lesson consciously (bcs 'lessons' could be subconscious, we're not aware of) if ever. but even so it does feel shitty anyway in the moment-but yeah :)
"Struggle makes a story better"
since embracing this mindset, my life feels much more effortless. I'm just allowing life to happen.
Everyone goes through things Nathaniel. As Angelina Jolie say, “you must go through the center of the storm and face it head on. Only then will you be able to come through to the other side.
You are a wonderful human being. Hang in there.
It was very timely to watch! thank you
Me encanta éste Nathaniel más crudo, se te siente más presente y real!
We bring meaning to the moment
So it is the reverse: you can build a reason for everything that happens to you. And that retrospective making sense of the difficult moments will help you build a better future.
There sure is. Switching our thinking to embracing the rough waters (negative experiences) is what will really grow you as a person. Just know that it happens to everyone and you need to decide how you will face it. Will you grow from it or let it destroy you.
It's such a nice belief, I have it too. It's especially funny to see it in a karmic sense - i cut someone off in a line and few seconds later someone cuts me off. It always reminds me that life is a mirror and whatever you do good or bad it returns back to you in a different form but same frequency.
im not sure if many ppl tell you thjis. been going to europe/bosnia/spain/ etc. been lovimng it. might officially move there fromm usa.
Every experience is a step on our path to wisdom.
As Heraclitus observed, 'The only constant in life is change.'
Embrace each moment as a lesson, for they collectively shape our journey and growth.
Nathan, all of our mistakes, challenges, failures and joys make us who we are. With an open heart we grow into individuals even we can respect❤
Where things are allowed to come together naturally, where there isn't one dominant and obtrusive force (Hitler), they will, and they will have been meant to. Example: you start a new job and start talking to someone. It feels very natural and maybe you're going through something similar so you can learn a lot from each other. It happened because you two were dynamic, there was chemistry, something new could be gained for the both of you. This natural chemistry still work on micro levels such as interpersonal relationships where dominant and obtrusive forces don't get as much power. However, on many levels we do have dominant and obtrusive forces that are trying to impose their willl on full ecosystems, destroying all the micro level chemistry. Maybe there are macro level lessons to be learned from dominant wills getting too much influence, such as, basic human rights and not letting despots have power. This doesnt take away from the fact that the micro level chemistry got obstructed during their rule. Another example: I live in a democratic country where I'm allowed to try different things in all levels of my life and feel what's wrong and what's right. In another country despot parents choose who you're going to spend your life with and despot leaders choose where your workforce should be applied, maybe even at war with another country. These big wills don't respect other wills. From a cognitive science perspective (my education), these powerfull forces can also get people working together and the lack of them can make people individualistic to a narcisistic degree. So, from my point of view everything happens for a reasons, doesn't mean it's either good or bad since you can find good and bad in every situation, just on different levels of analysis.
Anyway, just rambled about a train of thoughts and thought I might share it. It felt right, but I'm sure some things are wrong. Where I live, racism is treated as a joke to a large extent today, and maybe, everything in the history of the world had to happen for us to get here.
Oh, the timing Nate.
I've held this belief for decades that things don't happen to us but for us. You might be interested in the book Sacred Contracts by Carolyn Myss.
this, is great.
But what about those extreme examples you mentioned? How do we reconcile those with 'everything happens for a reason'? 😟 I'm conflicted
i completely agree with you. I think people are getting confused here. Obviously you're not talking about extreme situations, where people don't have access to their basic needs or face great suffering from political and social reasons. In those cases it must be impossible to find meaning.
The problem is people in privileged lives can get lost in the "victim role" (I don't know if this expression exists in english, I'm just translating it from portuguese). It's easy to just keep asking "why did this happen" and continue to suffer, feeling like the we're always the victms. But if we try to take something out of it, instead of just regret or shame, we can feel much better. We can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we feel about it.
Well said! Thank you.
imo "everything happens for a reason" is not about determanism but that there are always opportunities whatever happend
Live week in late October! yeah let’s go!!
For anyone needing to read this, I *greatly* recommend you watch one of Nathaniel's oldest videos, called "A few words on God". ❤
For me, "everything happens for a reason" is insular reasoning. Children are abused and murdered. People are traumatised and suffer. Survival may be life-long struggle. Enjoy beautiful moments. They can be earned, predictable, random, but they are not inevitable. If they were - then suffering could be justified as a stepping stone towards a beautiful moment. Think of how empowering that reasoning is for abusers. You don't have to suffer to realise this. Just look at the world.
Playing Devil’s advocate here. Everything happens due to some reason, not necessarily for one. I would argue there isn’t always a lesson in every situation. Take sexual assault, for example. This is a common occurrence and very little is to be learned by the victim nor the assaulter when they get away with it. I think there are likely countless examples of things happening for no particular reason with little tangible value post-event.
So it would nice to know ow what happened to you? Must have been a failed endeavor? I watch your videos all the time and love listening to you perspective.
Curious what didn't pan out for you that you were stubborn about then got out the other side with this perspective.
Do you know the youtube channel 'Like Stories of Old'? You two should collab.
You must be a Pisces rising ❤
No.
@@HGAitssimple Taurus?
I think you would benefit from looking deeper into Buddhism :)
one of the many philosophies of Islam
Not every lesson is a helpful one though.
I disagree. I went through an ectopic pregnancy that almost killed me, assault, harassment, injuries, and illnesses. I don't feel stronger after going through that; I feel fearful and unhappy. I think you are still young and are romanticizing life in a way that will make it difficult for you to handle suffering in the future.
I totally agree. having the fortune to live in a good country, travel freely, and work remotely with zero care and zero troubles doesn't mean you have the full experience and that you're equipped to advise on and teach people about life and keep uploading the same vague faux wisdom videos about your unique perspective on life. it's just redundant
I totally agree. having the fortune to live in a good country, travel freely, and work remotely with zero care and zero troubles doesn't mean you have the full experience and that you're equipped to advise on and teach people about life and keep uploading the same vague faux wisdom videos about your unique perspective on life. it's just redundant
I wholeheartedly relate to your sentiment. I lost a pregnancy at 18 weeks; labored for 14 hours; had an uncontrolled fever; and my placenta refused to separate from my uterine wall. This loss was excruciating, but does not compare to the harm inflicted on me by others. When I was Nathaniel’s age, I very much saw the world in a similar fashion; and it did not lift me up or support me when I experienced harm from the government. It did not prepare me in any way to reconcile cultural lies, including but not limited to, “everything happens for a reason.” For those that believe this, it will destroy you, as it has me, or it will be the fuel you need to overcome. One size does not fit all. And I feel that’s the only truth we need to submit to.
It takes time, @rosalieo5045. I’m a 3x domestic violence survivor, and a breast cancer survivor, too. ❤🙏🏽
You are so young, of course you are struggling. Part of the deal.
You don’t necessarily come off as put together….
I beg to differ! I think he comes across as very together and organized! It's just that the artistic soul is always searching. But there is definitely method there.
I adore you however this was not one of your better videos. It was just too vague. I’m almost 66 so have seen my fair share of heartbreak, not getting actual details of your failure, makes your story much less impactful. Not too worry, I’ll keep viewing, maybe just a blip from your otherwise very insightful meanderings.
I feel like you are in a vicious circle repeating the same themes again and again. Act more and think less is what I would say.
Too much thinking to be healthy