You are asking the wrong question.

When Bad Things Happen and life falls apart, we have to know why. Scratch that. We NEED to know why.

Up is up and down is down. There is a certain certainty to the world. Right is right and wrong is wrong. But then your spouse gets cancer, or terrorists come to kill when you are safe at home drinking coffee in your pjs. The whys in life all have to do with things that should not happen.

Contextually we know these Things Happen. Cars break down, bodies break down, there is evil in the world. But when it happens to us, it leaves us questioning everything.

Here’s the hard part.

You may never know why.

The reason why we want to know why, is because we are trying to make sense of an upside down world. Everything makes sense in life, with our daily routines. The sky doesn’t fall, we wake up each day, our kids are healthy, we go to work and Starbucks and we do it all over again the next day. When bad things happen, it’s like everything we believed about how life worked suddenly doesn’t make sense.

We don’t fall off the face of the earth into outer space because of gravity.

When something bad happens to us, it’s like gravity has stopped working and we are no longer standing on earth, but lost spinning in outer space. Nothing makes sense.

That is why we have to know why, but why is not the answer you are seeking.

In truth, you really just want whatever happened to not have happened.

As a runner up, we will take the answer to why, to give some kind of order back to life. To make gravity work again, so that we can trust in life and the order of things again. Some people get answers to the why question, and I am sure it brings some comfort, but it doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is the bad thing happened.

The real question we need to be asking is HOW?

How do we get through this bad thing? How?

I call it embracing the suck, because the sucky thing happened. We can only deny reality for so long. Have you ever met anyone not anchored in reality? How fun are these people? (Hint: Not very.)

All we need when we are going through a bad thing is the answer to HOW.

How do we do it? Because like it or not, we have to do it. We are not God and there are things that believe or not, we have no control over. We are left with what we are left with, and instead of asking why, we need to figure out how.

My very last day at Magic Kingdom I had a big, great plan. Breakfast at Steakhouse 71, then a full day at Magic Kingdom, then at night I had tickets to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. It was my hurrah, what should have been a day filled with the sounds of children laughing, the sun shining, and lots of Christmas cheer.

Instead, it rained all day, and when it got to the party time, the heavens opened up and it drenched us. The worst rain I have ever experienced at Disney in my many times of going. Soaked to the bone, no matter what poncho or umbrella you had.

The tickets cost me a whopping $180 and it was also my very last day at the place that I love so much. I’m moving because I have to, which kind of adds salt to the wound. I don’t want to leave and my last day was ruined.

After it got really bad, I gave up on why is this happening and asked the right question: How I was going to handle it.

I embraced the suck and danced in the rain. I rode so many rides I got sick of riding rides. Everything had no wait. I got in over 40,000 steps running all over that place, having the time of my life. Did it suck not having the parade, the fireworks, and the shows? You bet. Would I have preferred a perfect sunny day? 100%.

But I had to go with how, not why.

This is just silly example of a why vs. how. What about when the biopsy shows cancer, or your mom dies?

How, not why.

How are you going to get through this? That is the question you need to be asking yourself.

The next time something bad happens, this mantra needs to be in your head:

That is your mantra with anything.

How do I get through it?

That is the answer to the right question. Figure out your how.

Here’s a much deeper why vs how.

My stomach became paralyzed. I have idiopathic gastroparesis, which means they don’t know why it became paralyzed. Most days I do well, but there are days where the pain is so overwhelming that I don’t want to do it anymore. Gastroparesis hurts. Nothing moves, and your guts feel like a bomb is exploding inside out. It HURTS. It causes anemia, which causes hair loss, malnutrition, and a distorted body shape. It hurts to eat. Can you imagine?

I have given up on the why. The doctors think a bout with COVID killed the nerves in my stomach, paralyzing it. Knowing why doesn’t help. I have had to ask the right question: How do I live life with a broken stomach?

How. Not why.

How do you deal with your mom dying?

How do you deal with getting laid off?

How?

Figure out the how.

I can’t fix my stomach, or my mom getting sick, or people leaving me. I can only control how I am doing to deal with it.

You can figure out the how, and you will.

Much love,

Amy Tangerine

Here is how I did the how on my last day at Magic Kingdom. I titled it “Life is what you make of it” because you figure out the how.

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