We are enrolled in the full-time school called "life". Every day in this school, we have opportunities to learn new lessons. No matter whether we like these lessons or not, we have to take them, because they are our lessons.
Why are we here in this world? What is the purpose of life? Humans have tried to discover the meaning of life for thousands of years, but failed to get the answer, because the meaning of life is different from person to person.
Each one of us has his or her special purpose and path, unique and different. As we travel on our life paths, we will learn many great lessons in order to fulfill that purpose. Learning our lessons well is the key to discovering the real meaning of our own life.
As we travel through our lifetime, we may be taught hard lessons that others don't have to face, while others spend years struggling with problems we don't need to deal with. We may never know why we love English, not physics, which indicates that our paths are different. While traveling on our own paths, sometimes alone, we should, first of all, take a basic lesson in openness.
Openness means being receptive. Life will present us with so many lessons, none of which are useful to us unless we can recognize them and are open to their values. These lessons are not easy to learn, but we should regard them as gifts. But how can we recognize these lessons? It is a matter of what "glasses" we are wearing at the time. It is not difficult to spot them if we take them as opportunities. So when we are not open to learning our lessons, failing a weekly English test might be like a disaster rather than an opportunity to us. Of course, the hard lessons may not be fun, but they can actually be the biggest gifts we receive from life.