Religious leaders and philosophers have attempted to make sense of personal tragedy throughout history. Different beliefs include the idea of a grand plan or order to the universe, eternal life and heaven, detachment from earthly possessions, acceptance of the randomness of life, and the opportunity for personal transformation. While some find solace in their beliefs, others may experience a spiritual crisis. Coping mechanisms include finding positive changes resulting from tragedy and creating organizations to help prevent similar situations from happening to others. Constructing meaning out of tragedy is a difficult but necessary task.
Suffering and dealing with personal tragedy seem intertwined with the very existence of human beings. Most of us will experience extraordinary losses that will leave us confused, misdirected, unhappy and grieving. For millennia, religious leaders and philosophers have tried to make sense of personal tragedy, to fit it into a specific way of thinking or way of being that will hopefully help solve the problems of people facing dire times. When we haven’t suffered personal tragedies, it’s easy to think that the answers offered by a particular philosophy or religion will be adequate consolation.
Over time, humans have built numerous structures in which to consider or explain why suffering and loss exist. These constructs are based on long-standing religious beliefs or philosophical opinions, and sometimes both. Without identifying a particular faith or philosophy, since so many of them connect with each other, you can still evaluate some of the ways people have tried to make sense of personal tragedy, past and present. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it strikes some major philosophical and religious views on the meaning of suffering and loss:
1) There is a grand plan or order to the universe. This can be directed by a deity, or can exist without one. This order means that some events can’t really be fully understood, since as humans we can’t know the plan. We simply know that our lives fulfill this plan, and we should have faith in the master order or plan that has meaning beyond the personal. In essence, when tragic circumstances occur, they have a reason, which we may never fully perceive.
2) With or without the idea that all things satisfy the universal order, there can be the concept of eternal life and heaven. Eternal life means that the experience of loss is only a tenth of our existence, as is life as a mortal being. We have hope that our lost loved ones will be returned to us, or that we will meet them again in the “next life”, whether it is a heavenly paradise or a life on earth. When people think of a heavenly environment, today’s suffering can have final rewards in the hereafter, and all will be made clear when our minds and souls are cleansed of such suffering.
3) Humans will always suffer because they are tied to earthly things. The more we diminish our desire to possess others or control our own destiny, the less we will suffer. Happiness is achieved by detachment from what is earthly. Living in the moment and loving in a detached, non-possessive way will minimize the tragedies we face. The tragedy and the inability to recover from it means that we are still too grounded, and must work harder to create this detachment.
4) Life can be all comic nonsense and patternlessness, and death or loss just doesn’t make any sense. Furthermore, death is the last note of existence. So choosing to live in spite of daily tragedy, personal and impersonal, is adventurous work, and we should choose to live as happily as possible, as suffering is sure to occur on a regular basis. Finally, if life is just a one-time proposition, living it fully and not dwelling on your suffering is a better use of our short existences.
5) If we work hard enough, we can make sense of personal tragedy because its purpose will be revealed to us as life continues on its course. Using logic, observation and energy, every tragedy becomes an opportunity to transform and improve ourselves, hence the expression: “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”.
Each individual may have developed their own blend of the above ideas, or a person may have never considered the function or explanation of personal tragedy. Even when we have deep beliefs about why a tragedy occurs, we can still be challenged when it happens. It can be exceptionally difficult to live with the idea that in our human life we ”can never know or understand” the meaning of personal suffering. It can be just as difficult to live with the notion that such suffering is meaningless.
This inexorable tangle equates to two kinds of suffering: the pain that comes from losing something or someone precious, and the pain that comes from not being able to figure it all out. Not only do we mourn the losses, but we ask, “Why me?” Most people want answers to this question and not having them evokes a sense of imbalance and confusion. People can dwell as much on why they are grieving as they do on mourning someone or something lost.
Some people endure suffering and are supported by their belief systems. For those who find their faith strengthened in the midst of tragedy, the answer to “Why me?” it comes quite easily. Tragedy makes sense because all actions fulfill a set purpose. Some philosophies even discourage asking why, because questioning divine purpose is an attempt to subvert divine intent.
Unfortunately, not everyone is able to hold on completely to faith or their own ideas about how the world works. Many find themselves in a spiritual crisis, from which they may eventually recover, with faith stronger than before. Alternatively, such crises may involve a complete change in a person’s point of view.
There are some things we can do to make sense of personal tragedy in small ways. These don’t necessarily conflict with long-held spiritual beliefs and can help alleviate the double pain that loss engenders. The idea of making lemonade with lemons may seem Pollyannaish in light of the enormous loss, but we can begin to calmly observe (when we’re ready) not only the negative, but also the positive changes that personal tragedy brings.
For example, a woman might have a miscarriage and be in significant pain as a result. That same woman could get pregnant a few months after the miscarriage and have a child. Loving this second child does not replace the first, but from a pure time perspective, the woman could not have had both children. It can be helpful in the grieving process to understand that only the tragedy of the loss of the first child could have led to the birth of the second child.
We can also begin to create things out of a tragic mess that will help us honor a person or thing we have lost, and perhaps give that loss a greater purpose. Even if you believe that personal tragedy is part of a great universal order or plan, that’s no reason not to try to do things that will improve yourself or others. For example, some people deal with tragedy by creating support groups or organizations that could help prevent the same situations from happening to others.
When Mark Klaas founded the Polly Klaas Foundation after his daughter’s murder, he did very well in creating an organization that would help create a better flow of information about missing children, in the hope that these children could be found sooner. that they were damaged. Similarly, mothers who had lost their children to drunk drivers organized Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Now MADD distributes information, helps host alcohol-free events for teens, and continues to fight to eliminate drink-driving deaths and reduce drink-driving in general. Without extreme losses, these organizations and others like them probably wouldn’t exist. They are born from the bitter fruits of life and become resources that people can point to as practical sense.
Dealing with a personal tragedy doesn’t mean you have to build an organization. But the willingness to ask, “How can this make me feel better?” it can help provide a pragmatic and graceful means to recover from life’s losses. Being open to noticing how the course of life may have changed in a positive direction, or simply allowing your mind to question the purpose of the tragedy in its aftermath may be the best we can do, especially in the beginning. The claim that hindsight is 20/20 can be applied to the deliberate act of attempting to construct meaning out of horrific circumstances. As life goes on, your hindsight allows you to find your patterns and realize that even if these circumstances were never what you wanted, they could still have positive consequences, now or in the future.
Building one’s meaning out of tragedy is no easy job, and this cannot be stated enough. However, your attempts at this work, which may take some time to accomplish, are important in stilling the mind’s search for answers that are perhaps unanswerable. You may never be able to determine why, but you can decide how a big loss can positively build your future. You may need some help and time to find the positives in the essentially negative, but in most cases you can find them eventually, if you put the effort into looking for them.
There is a wonderful quote from the poet Ranier Maria Rilke that coherently sums up the work ahead as you try to make sense of the personal tragedy and answer the question of why it happened. He writes: “Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live a distant day in your answers”.
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