The providential benefits of Not getting what we want

My conclusion is that benefits of Not getting what we want, only happen if we are capable of learning from our life experience. 

The trouble is that some people are not capable of learning. 

These are the type who spend their years eaten up with "if only" regrets, concerning their failure to achieve this or that which - it seems evident - either made no perceptible difference, or could never possibly have yielded the satisfactions they imagine it would - and often enough would have done them harm.  

The main area for such delusory failings to get is probably sexual relationships. Much of my early life was a sequence of "If Only" with respect to this or that girl; combined with recurrent (and rapid) disillusion about my actual "success" in sometimes getting who I wanted. 

Looking back I am only grateful that I did Not always (or usually) get what I then wanted. My early life often seems like a sequence of "bullets" fortunately avoided, or bullets that hurt but left only light wounds - it would be awarding me way too much kudos to say these bullets were "dodged". 

Mostly this stuff happened-to me, rather than me taking responsibility in any serious fashion. 

I very seldom deserve any credit for avoiding harm (either prospectively or retrospectively) - but only for (perhaps belatedly) recognizing and acknowledging that harm had indeed been avoided. 

And also professionally, career-wise; there were things I worked hard to get or to keep - but failed; and it very often now seems providential that here too I did Not get what I (most?) wanted. 

In sum, and with a few supremely important exceptions; it seems that it would have been a distinctly Bad Thing for me to have gotten those things I most wanted at most phases of my life. 

It was lucky that I did not usually succeed, in those terms I set for myself. 

One  general lesson is that there are vital lessons to be learned from failure; and we often ought to be glad for many, indeed most, of the (inevitable) set-backs to our plans and desires. 

(This is why people who do not acknowledge their failures, or those who regard themselves as victims are in such deep spiritual trouble. Only by acknowledging failure can we learn - and we are alive, mainly, to learn.) 

But on the other side; there are some moments when everything, so-many good possibilities, apparently hinge upon attaining a particular success - in a fashion that is existentially intoxicating and undermining. 

We must then do our bit, make the right choices and stick by them - although most of what happens to generate that situation, seems very much "out of our hands"; as if requiring astonishing chains of coincidence. 

My conclusion includes that providence is of extreme importance in our lives; especially considering that most people think that the notion of providence is impossible: merely pathetic, idiotic, nonsense. 

But while providence often helps us when have done little or nothing to deserve help, it cannot and should not be relied-upon to lead our life for us. 

(Indeed, although providence is indispensable; our lives would be literally worth-less if providence was the whole story.)

There always comes a point when we need to make choices in the context of a situation that providence has served-up to us. 

And that is when "what we want" becomes of supreme importance.