Life is so unpredictable. One day I feel like my life is perfect. There's nothing I would change about it and I can feel the happiest I have ever felt in my entire life. The next day my feelings completely change. Instead this day I am challenged with hardships and I can feel the lowest I’ve ever felt. I believe that every good or bad thing that occurs in my life happens for a reason and it is up to me to decide whether the challenges I encounter are good or bad.

When I was 4 years old my parents got a divorce. I don’t remember much of what happened. All I can remember are small fragments of memories. I remember seeing my mom furiously keying someone’s car. I remember my dad running out of our house trying to stop my mom.  I remember a lot of yelling and crying. I remember the cops showing up eventually and after that the memories are all a blur. Years and years of being married and in love with one another, and that’s all I can remember. I was so young that I wasn’t sure what happened and life just resumed after that. I didn’t ask questions. I now was just splitting my time between my parents, switching every other week.

When I was 14 years old I started to become curious. I began asking questions as to what actually happened. It turns out my dad was having an affair with someone from his work. I was so ashamed of what my dad could do to my mom. I was so mad and hurt; I felt like I didn’t even know who my dad truly was. I couldn’t stop crying but what was weird was not a single tear fell from my mom’s eye. Instead she looked at me completely at peace with the situation and said, “Everything happens for a reason.” I felt confused but then she began to explain why she felt that way. She said she will never regret meeting my father because then she wouldn’t have had me or my sister. She also looks at the divorce in a positive way because without it she would have never met her current husband. As clique has it sounded at the moment, I felt it was so true.

When life gets hard and I want to give up; I think about that small phrase, “everything happens for a reason”, and it puts everything into perspective for me. I instead began to accept the challenges instead of trying to run from them no matter how drastically it could change my life. Thinking positively and accepting the change in my life brings me at peace always knowing that it’s happening for a reason.