Stop Asking Why This Is Happening. Start Asking What It's Teaching.
By Derek Neighbors on November 17, 2025
We’d built an amazing company. Growing like crazy. Revenue climbing. Team expanding. Everything we’d worked for finally clicking into place.
Then 2008 hit.
The housing crisis didn’t care about our trajectory or our hustle or how good our work was. The economy collapsed. Our clients froze budgets. Projects evaporated overnight.
We laid off half the company. Then we spent the next year covering payroll out of our own personal savings more weeks than I want to count, watching what we’d built teeter on the edge of complete collapse.
And every night I asked the same question: “Why is this happening to me?”
We’d done everything right. Made smart decisions. Built something valuable. None of that mattered. The crisis was completely arbitrary. Not about quality of work or decisions we’d made, just an economy in free fall taking everyone down with it.
The question felt justified. It felt like the only reasonable response to getting crushed by forces beyond your control. But every time I asked it, I sank deeper into helplessness.
Then one morning, exhausted and out of options, I asked a different question: “What is this teaching me?”
That shift, from “why me?” to “what’s this teaching?”, changed everything. Not because it made the crisis easier. Because it made me someone who could use it.
The ancient Greeks had a word for this: askesis. Not asceticism or deprivation. Training. The practice of treating every difficulty as reps for the soul.
They understood something we’ve forgotten: You don’t get to choose what happens. But you can choose to be trained by it or broken by it. The question you ask determines which.
The Eternal Question
There are two questions you can ask when difficulty shows up.
“Why is this happening to me?” creates a victim. Someone acted upon. Someone suffering circumstances beyond their control. Someone waiting for conditions to change before they can grow.
“What is this teaching me?” creates a student. Someone extracting wisdom. Someone using circumstances as curriculum. Someone growing regardless of conditions.
Same difficulty. Completely different trajectory.
We live in an era that treats hardship as aberration rather than instruction. We’ve turned normal friction into pathology, natural resistance into trauma, inevitable struggle into evidence something’s wrong.
The promise of modern life: eliminate all difficulty and you’ll be fine.
The reality: eliminate difficulty and you eliminate the very thing that builds capacity.
This isn’t about positive thinking or finding silver linings. It’s about recovering an ancient philosophical practice that understood something profound: friction isn’t just inevitable, it’s essential. Not despite being hard, but because it’s hard.
The Ancient View
Askesis comes from the same Greek root that gives us “ascetic,” but it didn’t mean deprivation. It meant training. Practice. Systematic discipline.
Athletes used askesis to build physical capacity. Philosophers used askesis to build character. But the method was identical: progressive exposure to difficulty that develops capability you can’t build any other way.
This wasn’t self-improvement. This was the path to eudaimonia, human flourishing. The Greeks understood that the capacity to learn from difficulty, to extract wisdom from struggle, was distinctly human. Rational capacity means the obligation to use it. Asking “What is this teaching me?” actualizes your humanity in a way “Why is this happening to me?” never can.
The ancient Greeks built gymnasiums not hoping excellence would spontaneously appear, but creating structured training protocols that produced reliable performance. The gymnasium wasn’t where you went when you were strong. It was where you went to get strong.
They applied the same principle to the soul.
Every difficult conversation was reps for courage. Every setback was reps for resilience. Every frustration was reps for patience. Every failure was reps for wisdom.
They had a phrase for it: pathemata mathemata. “Through suffering comes learning.”
Not around suffering. Not after suffering ends. Through it. The difficulty itself is the education.
Marcus Aurelius wrote in his private journal:
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
He wasn’t being poetic. He was describing the practice of askesis, treating obstacles as training equipment.
When your project fails, that’s not punishment. That’s training in better judgment.
When your relationship struggles, that’s not curse. That’s training in deeper communication.
When your body breaks down, that’s not betrayal. That’s training in human limits and care.
The ancient view: Life provides the curriculum. Your job is to be a good student.
The Modern Problem
Somewhere between Stoic philosophy and modern therapy, we lost the thread.
We took legitimate insight about trauma and expanded it until all discomfort became pathology. We took necessary compassion for suffering and warped it until all difficulty became victimization.
The result: A culture that can’t distinguish between harm that needs healing and friction that needs processing.
“Why is this happening to me?” became the default question. And every time we ask it, we reinforce helplessness.
I watch leaders treat every challenge as persecution rather than preparation. They collect evidence that life is unfair, circumstances are rigged, success is impossible. They’re right, when that’s the question you ask, that’s what you find.
I watch professionals treat feedback as attack rather than calibration. Instead of asking “What does this reveal about my blindspots?” they ask “Why are people always criticizing me?” One extracts wisdom. The other collects resentment.
I watch people experience normal setbacks and ask “What did I do to deserve this?” As if difficulty requires moral justification. As if struggle means something’s wrong with you.
The comfort gospel promised that if we eliminate enough friction, we’ll finally be okay. Better systems. Better boundaries. Better self-care.
But here’s what actually happened: We created people who need more support to handle less challenge. People who can’t process difficulty without feeling broken. People who treat every struggle as evidence they’re failing rather than training they’re receiving.
We didn’t reduce suffering. We reduced capacity.
The Integration
The shift from victim to student isn’t about pretending difficulty doesn’t hurt. It’s about refusing to let hurt be the only thing you get from it.
Every difficulty can teach something about character when you interrogate it properly. Not every difficulty contains a silver lining or a cosmic purpose or a fairness you can understand. But every difficulty can train something in you that needed strengthening.
The mechanism is simple: The question you ask directs your attention. Your attention shapes your interpretation. Your interpretation determines your response. Ask “Why me?” and your attention goes to injustice, your interpretation becomes victimhood, your response is helplessness. Ask “What’s this teaching?” and your attention goes to patterns, your interpretation becomes insight, your response is growth.
The practice of askesis starts with changing the question.
When your project fails, don’t ask “Why does this always happen to me?” Ask “What is this teaching me about planning, communication, or assumptions?”
The victim question creates a story of persecution. The training question reveals where your judgment broke down. One keeps you stuck. The other makes you sharper.
When you’re stuck with a difficult person, and you will be, don’t ask “Why am I always dealing with people like this?” Ask “What is this teaching me about boundaries, patience, or communication?”
The victim question makes you feel trapped. The training question shows you the exact character muscles that only get built through this specific friction. You can’t develop certain kinds of patience, certain types of boundary-setting, certain depths of communication skill without difficult people providing the resistance.
When you face financial setback, and you will, don’t ask “Why do I have such bad luck with money?” Ask “What is this teaching me about my relationship with risk, planning, or earning?”
The victim question attributes outcomes to forces beyond your control. The training question reveals patterns in your behavior that created predictable consequences. One makes you feel powerless. The other shows you exactly what needs to change.
When your body breaks down, and it will, don’t ask “Why is my body betraying me?” Ask “What is this teaching me about limits, care, or priorities?”
The victim question creates antagonism with your own biology. The training question develops embodied wisdom about being human. The fragility isn’t punishment. It’s information about how you’ve been operating and what needs adjustment.
Same circumstances. Different question. Completely different trajectory.
The Practice
Changing the question sounds simple. Actually doing it when you’re in the middle of difficulty requires deliberate practice. This isn’t just strategy. It’s character formation, training your soul to see difficulty as curriculum rather than curse.
Method 1: Catch the Victim Question
Start noticing when you ask “Why is this happening to me?” Don’t judge it. Just notice. The awareness itself starts to create space between stimulus and response.
Before the question spirals into helplessness, pause. Take one breath. Then consciously replace it: “What is this teaching me?”
Write down what comes up. Not what you wish were true. What the difficulty actually reveals about where you need to grow.
Method 2: The Training Journal
At the end of each difficult day, complete this sentence: “Today trained me in…”
Not positive spin. Honest assessment of what got stronger. Even if what got stronger was just your capacity to sit with frustration without needing to fix it immediately.
After a week, look for patterns. What keeps showing up? That’s not random. That’s your curriculum. Life will keep providing reps in whatever you need to develop until you develop it.
Example entries from my own journal:
- “Today trained me in staying calm when plans collapse”
- “Today trained me in speaking up when I want to stay quiet”
- “Today trained me in accepting help instead of grinding alone”
Not every day produces profound insight. Some days just build baseline capacity for difficulty. That’s still training.
Method 3: The Difficulty Inventory
List your current struggles. The ones that keep you up at night or make you dread tomorrow. Three to five is enough.
For each one, ask: “If this difficulty is training, what’s it training me for?”
Not what you hope it means. What character trait is clearly getting developed through this specific friction.
Struggling with a team that won’t take initiative? Might be training in delegation, trust-building, or creating psychological safety.
Struggling with a strategy that’s not gaining traction? Might be training in customer understanding, message clarity, or patience with iteration.
Struggling with a relationship that requires more than you feel capable of giving? Might be training in emotional capacity, vulnerability, or honest boundary-setting.
Once you identify what’s being trained, you can approach the difficulty differently. Not trying to eliminate it or escape it. Engaging it as deliberate practice for the capability you need.
Method 4: The Gymnasium Reframe
When you’re about to enter a hard conversation, tackle a difficult task, or face an uncomfortable situation, say to yourself: “This is my gymnasium.”
Not metaphorically. Actually. This is where you build character capacity you can’t develop any other way.
Enter it the way an athlete enters training—not expecting it to be easy, expecting it to make you stronger.
After, regardless of outcome, ask: “What did I get stronger at?” Patience. Clarity under pressure. Maintaining boundaries. Speaking difficult truth. Sitting with someone else’s anger without needing to fix it.
The outcome matters. But the training matters more. You’ll face situations like this again. What you built today determines how you handle tomorrow.
The Reckoning
This will feel insufficient at first.
When you’re in real difficulty, not hypothetical, not philosophical, but actual struggle that hurts, asking “What is this teaching me?” will feel too small. Too simple. Too clean for the mess you’re in.
Ask it anyway.
Not because it makes the pain go away. Because it keeps the pain from being the only thing you get.
The victim question, “Why is this happening to me?”, feels like it honors the difficulty. Like admitting how hard it is. But all it actually does is create a story where you’re powerless and circumstances are cruel.
The training question, “What is this teaching me?”, doesn’t minimize the difficulty. It refuses to waste it.
You’re going to struggle. Projects will fail. People will disappoint you. Your body will break down. Money will get tight. Plans will collapse.
Those circumstances are coming regardless of the question you ask. The question just determines whether the struggle makes you stronger or just leaves scars.
Where This Goes
When I finally asked “What is this teaching me?” instead of “Why is this happening to me?” the crisis didn’t get smaller. My perspective got bigger.
I started finding clients who were capitalizing on the crisis instead of just surviving it. Companies that saw the downturn as opportunity to grab market share while competitors retreated. Organizations that understood disruption creates openings.
I started speaking and pouring energy into economic development. Investing time and resources into making the place I lived better, not just my own business. The crisis forced me to think beyond my success to entire ecosystems.
The Chinese use the same word for crisis and opportunity. I used to think that was poetic. Now I know it’s just accurate. Every crisis contains both. The question you ask determines which one you access.
That year didn’t just teach me how to survive hard times. It taught me how to see pain as raw material for growth. How to think systemically instead of individually. How to leverage difficulty instead of just enduring it.
I wouldn’t have learned any of that asking “Why me?” That question only produces resentment and helplessness.
Think about the hardest thing you’ve been through. The difficulty that nearly broke you but didn’t.
If you look honestly, you’ll find something in you now that wasn’t there before. Some capacity for hardship, some depth of understanding, some strength of character that only exists because you went through that specific fire.
That’s askesis. That’s training. That’s what happens when difficulty meets a willingness to learn from it.
Now look at what you’re facing right now. The struggle that keeps showing up. The friction you can’t avoid. The challenge that makes you ask “Why is this happening to me?”
What if it’s not happening to you? What if it’s training you?
Not for some cosmic purpose you’ll understand later. For the specific character development you need for what’s coming next.
The ancient Greeks built gymnasiums and trained systematically because they understood excellence doesn’t happen by accident. You have to create the conditions for it.
Your life right now is your gymnasium. The difficulty you’re facing is your training equipment. The question is whether you’re using it or just enduring it.
The Challenge
For the next seven days, ban one phrase from your internal dialogue: “Why is this happening to me?”
Every time difficulty shows up, and it will, catch that question before it spirals. Replace it with: “What is this teaching me?”
Write down your answer. Even if the answer is just “It’s teaching me that I can sit with frustration without needing to fix it immediately.”
Track what changes. Not in your circumstances. In your capacity to process them.
At the end of seven days, you’ll have a choice: Go back to asking the victim question and collecting evidence of powerlessness, or keep asking the training question and extracting wisdom from whatever life provides.
The circumstances won’t change much in a week. But the person facing them will.
Final Thoughts
I still catch myself asking “Why is this happening to me?” The difference now is I recognize it as the wrong question.
Not wrong because it’s inaccurate, difficulty is often unfair, frequently undeserved, sometimes genuinely cruel. Wrong because it’s useless. It creates helplessness without creating insight.
The right question, “What is this teaching me?”, doesn’t make difficulty easier. It makes you capable of handling more of it. Which is the only thing that actually matters.
The ancient Greeks understood that excellence requires training, not hoping. That capacity gets built through progressive difficulty, not eliminated by removing friction. That the gymnasium isn’t where you go when you’re already strong, it’s where you go to get strong.
Your life right now, with all its difficulty and friction and struggle, is your gymnasium.
The equipment is already in front of you. The question is whether you’re using it or just wishing it would disappear.
Ready to stop asking why and start extracting wisdom? MasteryLab is the community of people who’ve made this shift, from treating difficulty as punishment to treating it as preparation. Join others who see struggle as curriculum, not curse.
