Fortune Cookies Life Lessons: Trusting the Path to Greatness

By Philip Joks

“...I know I won't experience it all, but I'll trust that the journey I'm on is the one that's meant for me.” Experiencing Love Ep 119

Hello, and welcome to Experiencing Love. I'm your host, Philip Joks, and I'm so glad you're here. I want to start this episode off with a fortune I got in a fortune cookie today. It said, "Trust the journey on a Tuesday; it is leading you to greatness." Now, there are so many layers as to why I found this specific fortune endearing and even a bit funny.

So, first of all, base layer, it's Tuesday, right? I had a 1 in 7 chance on this fortune cookie that the day I would eat this Chinese food would be the day that the fortune lines up. I look at what it says, "Trust the journey. It is leading you to greatness." That's nothing new for this podcast. That's nothing new for what I talk about because I already believe, deep down to my core, that everything happens for a reason. I've said it here many times, and I'm going to continue saying it.

And the reason that I really found this one funny this time around is for one, I always find fortune cookies funny because sometimes they're not even fortunes. Sometimes they're just really random quotes. One of my favorite ones being "Book lovers never go to sleep alone." I got that fortune last December, and I still think about it today because I have no clue what it means. "Book lovers never go to sleep alone." I was always like, is that because their thoughts are filled with characters, or do they just get laid more often because they love books? And I started asking questions like, so does that mean if you're not getting laid enough, you don't love books enough? And just keep going down that path until I just crack myself up because at the end of the day, I'm like, why is this in a fortune cookie? What does this mean?

So, first of all, I love fortune cookies. They bring joy to my life. And I see something like this and I say, "Oh, wow, what a coincidence. It's Tuesday and I got a fortune cookie telling me to trust the journey on a Tuesday." But also, I know that there are no coincidences. I believe in God Winks — that God sends us signs in these funny ways, in these ways that just make us notice, make us think for a moment.

I also enjoyed it because earlier today, I attempted to donate blood with my mom and my aunt. I say attempted because there's a little bit of a funny mishap that happened when they stuck the needle into my arm, and I started to bruise really early on, and they decided it would be better if they just took out the needle and we didn't go through with it. That's totally fine by me. I've donated probably six or seven times now. This is the first time something like this has happened. And things happen, they happen for a reason. And whatever that reason may be, I may know, I may figure it out, or I may never know, right?

So that happened. I wasn't able to donate blood. It happened right at the very beginning. So I still have 99.9% of the blood inside me. My mom was indeed able to donate blood, so we waited for her to finish up and for her to have her snacks in the waiting room afterward to make sure that she's feeling alright. I was talking with my aunt and my mom in the waiting room, and they were both kind of bummed that mine didn't work out and I wasn't able to donate. At no point did I actually feel that feeling of being bummed out because rather than having an expectation for what the experience was going to be like, I usually just default to everything happens for a reason. So when they were bummed out, I just explained to them that there's a reason that it didn't work out. It may be for today, for this story, or it may be for some reason a few weeks from now when not having donated somehow affects my life, then maybe it's in the coming days I have more energy, which then affects my life in the future. You see how there are so many different possibilities.

And what's great about this all is everything I've just mentioned these past few minutes is most likely wrong. I am wrong so often. And I think that's so amazing because when the truth comes out and I find out what is right, it's like a fun and pleasant surprise. It's a game the entire time, one in which there are no losers at the end. So I get to have fun guessing. I get to have fun in this thriller-mystery where there are clues all around me, and I get to try to be a detective and piece them together. And at some point, I think I have the right answer, and then it's wrong. I find it, or some new pieces of information come around and I get to change my theory again because there are also no real stakes. I'm never making these decisions that will intentionally hurt other people or hurt myself. It's more so me reflecting on the past, deciding, "Oh, okay, what do I want this to mean? What meaning and what language? What focus do I want to give the events of the past? Do I want to feel hurt by them? Do I want to feel ashamed or guilty? Do I want to feel like everything went wrong?" Or would I rather feel like I learned something, like I can grow from it, like there is no mistake? They're just lessons to learn. It's either a win or a learning moment, a gift.

Because that touches on another one of my core principles, another one of my tenets: Everything I experience is an opportunity to learn. I noticed recently when I was driving with another person, how different our approaches are to driving. I noticed that when they drive, it's a lot easier for them to get frustrated, especially by other drivers, by traffic. I could see it in the way they speed up and then have to slow down and have these verbal remarks about other drivers. It might be a sigh, it might be a grunt. And I recognize that what they do and how they react is not wrong whatsoever. It's just different from what I do. I also recognize that I used to be like that. And I decided that feeling those emotions of frustration and annoyance and disappointment and even sometimes anger just wasn't helping me. It wasn't building me up. It was tearing me down and giving me a worse experience of my drive.

When I drive now, I often let many things just roll off my back. If someone cuts me off, I often like to joke that they have somewhere they got to be way more than I do. They probably have to hit the bathroom so hard, and I would gladly give them my spot in line to get there faster. Or I make up some other silly stories, ones that lighten my mood and make me feel better about what's happening. Because truly, I will never know why someone cut me off. Sometimes it could be an accident. They didn't notice me in their blind spot. But I get to decide if what they did makes me angry or I find it in my heart to forgive and forget, to just spread some love, to send them some good energy. I won't know what their reason is. So I get to create my own. We all get to create our own meanings. We all just do it to some degree, subconsciously. What is the language you're using? How does that affect how you feel? It's all a guess in our heads. So why don't we choose to guess something that makes us feel happier, that makes us feel more grateful, more loving, more respectful? I don't know. That's just my two cents about it.

So even though I just did all of this in reverse chronological order, that's what's been on my mind today: this idea that everything happens for a reason, that I wasn't able to donate today. Now I have to wait the eight weeks again. And that's fine by me because in eight weeks, I'll be back, I'll donate again, I'll try one more time, and I'll do that again and again and again. Because no matter how I feel about donating blood, it helps other people. It has the opportunity to save a life.

I always found it ironic, a little bit like a godwink, that I found out my blood type is B positive. Like, of course, out of all of them, mine would be B positive. And I also want to say that I only found that out after starting this personal growth journey. So it made it extra special that it's literally in my blood to be positive. It's like my parents are AB positive and O negative or something. I'm the only one in my family that has the blood type B positive. And I love that for me, I truly do. It's just a fun thing to appreciate. So it's in my blood to be positive. I'll be back. And maybe there's a reason that I don't see yet. And that anticipation, that potentiality makes me feel good and it makes me feel alright with things happening.

I've always loved the word serendipitous. Things just happening in a happy way is how I like to look at it. And I find that the more I choose to see this serendipity in life, the more it happens without me noticing. I would say the lesson is, the more you train your brain to focus on a certain outcome, the more you're going to see it. I trained my brain to see the reason that things happen. Not the real reason, but my interpretation of the reason or my guess of the reason. I make sure that it's my guess of the reason because I don't want to torture myself with the perfectionism of actually getting it right. To me, there's no point in that. That is the type of thinking that has me spiraling and focusing on the areas that don't actually move the needle forward. I know in my heart that my guesses are what bring me forward, that move my needle. Because I'm also not afraid of being wrong; when I'm wrong, I learn; when I'm right, cool. It's a gift. So the way I see it, it's a win-win.

So when something like this happens, especially on a Tuesday, I love to just trust the journey on a Tuesday. It is leading me to greatness. Chances are, you're not listening to this on a Tuesday. But maybe something happened last Tuesday that still confuses you, that still bothers you, that still... Or maybe you have something next Tuesday that you're not excited for, or it scares you, or maybe something good will happen, or you hope something good will happen, but then it doesn't. You feel lost, you feel upset, you feel a little hurt. Whatever happens, practice a little faith and a little trust in your journey. I think the more trust you have, the greater you'll become.

I want to believe that, and I choose to believe that because I want that to be my path to greatness. And like I said before, I'm probably wrong, but everything happens for a reason. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being here. I enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed the serendipity of the day. And I know that there's so much more out there, so much more for me to learn, to experience. And I know I won't experience it all, but I'll trust that the journey I'm on is the one that's meant for me. And I hope you do the same. Remember to always fill up with love, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one. I love you.

Craving a deeper dive into the serendipity of life and the power of trusting your journey? Tune in to the full episode of "Experiencing Love" with Philip Joks and revel in more heartwarming insights and laughter. Don't miss out on the journey; listen now for the full experience! This Episode On Spotify

Photo by Kasia Derenda on Unsplash