Nobody enjoys a bumpy ride – except maybe if you were a child.

Taking a bumpy train or bus ride was kind of fun then. My recent flight from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur was just that, very bumpy, and only the kids on the plane were shouting with glee. They were so delighted!

The adults, on the other hand, were not too pleased; some even looked frightened and could not relax with all that was happening. As for me, I was just trying to nap, and the turbulence did help to rock me into a deep slumber.

In life, a bumpy ride doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Sometimes these bumps can be a tad annoying, and you may wish that they are not there. But seriously, a lot of the times these challenges are really good ones.

They are good in the sense of pulling you in all different directions — forcing you to see things differently. Allowing you to take on different perspectives, which you would otherwise not be able to see.

All my life, I have always had an inkling, or a reassuring feeling, that everything would work out fine – even when I was faced with the most challenging situations in life. However, at one point in my life not too long ago, I was completely clueless as to what to do, I had no answers, no sense of reassurance that things would be fine. In other words, I lost my compass completely. Yet I hung on to something. What exactly, I did not know.

On hindsight, I believe that I hung on to hope. Hope can be a very powerful thing when there is nothing else to grasp.

The ride for me was very bumpy spiritually, psychologically, and even in my physical reality. It was tempting to blame it all on the energies of that period in time. Yet I knew it was a journey I had to take, even if it meant going through an existential crisis.

A part of me saw that only good would come out of it. I felt like a caterpillar going through a deep metamorphosis. I had always thought I knew what the meaning of ‘suffering’ was, when I was so disconnected from myself during my days of high dependence on alcohol. But this existential crisis was deep-suffering, one that I couldn’t possibly express here. Perhaps it was because there was no alcohol to blame  — it was only me, myself, and I. The suffering cut me deeply as I questioned everything about my life: From my relationships with my family, my work, to my relationship with God.

Through all of that, I knew that I was breaking down. This as one of my mentors would say was a big breakdown before the big breakthrough.

As my personality goes, I have very little patience for drama. And when this happened, not only was I impatient to get out of it; if it was at all possible I would have rolled my eyeballs at myself for being the drama queen.

I tried to get some sense of peace through meditation, but none came. And then one day, it just happened. The answer came so clearly, and a sense of the direction I was to take opened before me. I did not have all the answers to everything, but I was able to trust that all was fine.

The bumps did throw me faster and closer towards my destination, strange as this might sound. And they served their purpose, even though it was not an enjoyable journey.

Here’s to bumpy rides! They are there to stretch us far.