When I was fifteen, there was a very respected social group that everyone hoped to join. However, it required an invitation. The first year I was eligible, I wasn’t asked. I thought, what is wrong with me? The next year I was passed over again, and I doubted myself even more. Finally, I was invited to join, but it was bittersweet.

Not being asked the first two years stuck inside me, gnawing away. I assumed many things were wrong with me and still were wrong. Finally, in college, I asked a friend why I hadn’t been invited sooner. He laughed and said he’d been jealous of me and stopped my nomination. He thought it was too easy for me to get girls and people liked me. I was shocked! I was thinking I wasn’t good enough while he was thinking he was less than me. We had both wasted valuable time and energy.

When things don’t turn out how we’d like, we might think we know why. The universe works in ways we cannot always see.

Written by John Goodman

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