What happened versus your interpretation of what happened?

On today's episode of Grey's Anatomy, something interesting happened that immediately stood out to me. I literally let out a scream because, God damn it! 

So, there was this old intern who came to the hospital, Norman. He was a 63-year-old man who had gone to medical school and somehow chose surgery as his specialty.

Now, as a surgical intern, the workload is crazy. The hours are long, the pressure is intense, and apparently, complaining doesn't exactly get you a day off, so imagine a 63-year-old man doing all of that.

One day, Norman collapsed in the OR and suffered what could have been a devastating stroke. Thankfully, the best neurosurgeon was on call that day, they operated on him, and he survived.

In our usual way of thinking, you would probably say, "Well, he's 63, he has no business being a surgical intern, the workload alone is enough to finish this man. He should have picked another specialty, maybe psychiatry or something less physically demanding."

But guess what?

Norman woke up from surgery and his first response was gratitude.

I couldn't understand it.

He was grateful for the very thing that had led him into surgery in the first place. Apparently, he had initially planned to go into psychiatry, but his late wife had nudged him towards surgery. And now, after everything that had happened, he believed she must have somehow known that he would one day need the very best surgeons to save his life.

Think about that, what are the odds?

When I heard that, I literally screamed because what a worldview!

What a way to look at how things play out.

We love to say that all things work together for our good, but do we really believe it when the "all things" don't look good?

Because like my coach would say, "Is the problem really the problem, or is your interpretation of the problem the problem?"

Take Norman, for example.

He could have interpreted what happened as proof that his resident was evil and wicked. He had complained about being tired, and he was told that interns don't get days off, so he carried on despite the exhaustion. It would have been very easy to look back and say, "See? This is what happens when people push you beyond your limits."

But Norman didn't see it that way.

He looked at the same situation through a completely different lens.

Because on the long run, even if he hadn't collapsed that particular day, there was a possibility that he would have collapsed eventually. And perhaps, in that moment, the thing that looked like a terrible interruption was actually what put him in the exact place he needed to be, surrounded by the people who could save his life.

Do you see that?

Dearest reader, what if sometimes the problem isn't really the problem, but our interpretation of it is?

What if we took a step back from our feelings and asked ourselves, what is actually happening here? What if we questioned the gaps in our interpretation instead of immediately accepting the story our emotions are telling us?

And most importantly, I need you to think like Norman here.

Think about every time you felt a nudge to do something and it didn't work out the way you expected. Every door that closed, every plan that fell apart, every "no" that felt like rejection.

What if some of those things were God's way of protecting you from something you couldn't see yet?

What if the thing you called a setback was actually a redirection?

I'm not saying every bad thing that happens to us is secretly good. Sometimes bad things are just bad, and life can be painfully unfair. But perhaps we should leave room for the possibility that we don't always have the full picture.

What if the question isn't always, "Why did this happen to me?", what if, sometimes it's, "What else could this mean?"

Thinking back now, can you remember an instance where something felt like the end, only for you to look back later and realise it somehow led you to a breakthrough you couldn't have imagined at the time?

Maybe that is the story you should be telling yourself about it now.

@favvy_Okwans🖤