Finding Purpose in Past Experiences

One of the Netflix series I recently finished watching was Manifest. It was about the passengers of an airplane, flight 828, and their experience after boarding a plane that went missing for five years.

One of the quotes that was mentioned in the story was the bible quote Romans 8:28, which says:

“All things work together for the good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Now, I’m not a religious person but looking back at things that have happened to me, I’d say there is truth to this message.

You see, I was born in the 80s at a time when democracy was very fragile in the Philippines. When the new president took over, there were a lot of problems, particularly in the power sector.

We would experience rotational power outages that lasted almost 12 hours if my memory serves me right. As a kid, this was something I didn’t like because I wouldn’t be able to watch my favorite TV shows. But, one thing that I liked during these brownouts was most of the kids would hang out outside the house and share stories.

Most were silly jokes, some were horror stories, and some were just funny things that they made up. This led me to love reading books and telling stories.

When I got into college, one of the activities I was into was the Reserved Officers’ Training Corps. As an officer, we would have a log book where we would disseminate the information needed by our cadets for the coming training day on the weekend. In a sense, this was like my mini newsletter.

Another thing that happened to me during college was I enrolled in a Psychology class. At the time, I was thinking about shifting courses, so I took some courses that were outside of my major. And this was something that I enjoyed.

And piecing all of that together, I realized that those experiences in the past have helped me in my journey as a copywriter. Combining my storytelling and writing skills with my knowledge of psychology helped me embrace my craft.

Now that I think about it, I believe that this was where I was supposed to be and what I was meant to do. Being able to write and persuade people to take action has helped me get that satisfaction from my work and have a sense of fulfillment and contentment. In the end, all things do work together for the good.