'Why Does the Same Thing Keep Happening to Me?' or 'Why the Same Emotional Viruses Keep Finding the Same People'.

Human beings are really fond of believing in bad luck. This is understandable - because bad luck is convenient. It requires very little self-reflection. If the same unpleasant thing keeps happening to us, we can simply conclude that the universe has singled us out for special treatment. Many people do. Do you?

A woman who repeatedly finds herself in relationships with emotionally unavailable and/or unstable guys may conclude that all potentially suitable partners have mysteriously vanished from the planet - or have already been seduced into marriage. A man who feels consistently overlooked may decide that the world has formed a committee dedicated to ignoring him. A person who constantly feels criticised may become convinced that everyone else has been secretly instructed to point out their flaws.

These explanations are comforting.

The alternative is rather more awkward.

Suppose the universe is not targeting anyone. Suppose there is no committee. Suppose there is no cosmic conspiracy. Suppose something else might be happening…

Consider the common cold and imagine a person who catches every virus that wanders past. Every winter they are ill. Every spring they are ill. Every autumn they are ill. They seem to spend half their lives sneezing and apologising for it!

The viruses are everywhere, and other people encounter them too. The more interesting question would be why those viruses seem so comfortable in this particular person. Is it because they are cursed or is it because their immune system is not doing its job? Now let us return to emotional pain.

Some people seem unusually vulnerable to criticism, while others are particularly susceptible to rejection. Some appear to collect disappointment the way enthusiastic tourists collect fridge magnets. The ‘virus’ changes, but the suffering remains strangely familiar.

A person manages to leave a toxic relationship… Then finds another one - probably even worse than the one they had escaped. Another person changes jobs, while the same feelings of being undervalued follow them there. Someone else moves to a different city, starts a different business, meets different people and joins different social circles. Remarkably, the same emotional disasters somehow manage to arrive shortly afterwards. At some point, one begins to wonder whether these emotional difficulties have access to the travel itinerary. 

This is curious because most of us spend our lives examining the 'virus'.

We analyse the criticism. We analyse the rejection. We analyse the disappointment. We analyse the person who delivered it. Meanwhile, the environment receiving the virus escapes scrutiny entirely.

Imagine a gardener who spends every summer complaining about weeds while refusing to examine the soil. Sooner or later somebody would suggest looking at the garden itself.

The same principle may apply to emotional suffering. Perhaps the most important question is not:

"Why does this keep happening to me?"

Perhaps the more useful question is:

"Why does this keep affecting me in exactly the same way?"

Now things become most intriguing because those are two very different questions: one searches for explanations in the outside world, and the other turns its attention inward.

And that is often where the trail begins…

Coming Next:

Why Understanding Isn't the Same as Change

If awareness alone were enough, most of us would have solved our emotional struggles years ago. So why do the same reactions keep returning?