I have met so many people who are very talented, intelligent, who contribute a great deal to their societies and communities through their professions. Nonetheless, these people are held hostage by an enormous sense of sorrow owing to past trauma.

Some people have suffered multiple abuses. I’ve gone through them too. It often pains me to think just how unfair this world is. All of us will eventually get our share of suffering in life, but why do some people have to endure more brutal, painful and traumatic events throughout their lives, while some others appear to have it easy?

Contemplating these issues recently brought me sorrow. Upon reading Australian novelist Patrick White’s The Twyborn Affair (1979), I became aware that scientific explanations are not sufficient for us to emotionally fathom brutally traumatic experiences, so maybe a more spiritual one will do.

Perhaps we are all born to follow certain destinies and purposes – a life calling that has nothing to do with people who have trespassed against us, as my late mentor Margaret Agusta – who was a pioneer, trainer and mentor at The Jakarta Post – used to tell me.

Further, giving a nod to a new trend in positive psychology called post-traumatic growth, what if your traumatic and painful experiences actually serve to initiate you into the path of the service and contribution you’re pursuing right now?

Knowing our destinies have nothing to do with people who have hurt or even abused us may let us emotionally detach ourselves from them, knowing they are processing their own issues and perhaps have different purposes in ways we cannot understand on a human scale – maybe to remind us to choose a more compassionate path?

If this compassion drives our present vocations to serve other people, perhaps, as writer Marianne Williamson once said: our past will heal by itself and the future will take care of itself? Will we have more energy to live up to our highest calling? Hopefully, we will be living long enough to tell…