The Universe, The Test(s), The Answers

She knows what she's doing.

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Some say that The Universe presents us with tests. The Universe is, in this case, omniscient. She watches from above, or inside, or behind, and waits for her moment to hit us with a pop-quiz, obstacle course, or gauntlet.

It is important to note that The Universe doesn’t dictate anything. She doesn’t decide how we respond to her questions or what happens because of those responses. She just asks. She simply presents the moment and allows us to have it as we will.

And she does it so skillfully and quietly that most of us don’t realize she is even there. The Universe is everywhere, yet somehow invisible.

The Universe? She is very good at her job. She is so good at her job that we don’t even know she has been doing it for most of our lives. She is so good that we walk through years being tested by her repeatedly, and we don’t even know we’re taking the tests.

She is so good, too, that the tests are 100% unique to each of us every time. No two people in physical bodies are given the same test in the same way at the same moment in the same place. Each person’s test is only that person’s test. Sure, some tests might look similar to the untrained heart, but they are never exactly the same.

The answers to her tests are unique too. The Universe believes answers come in phases, actions, and periods of time, as opposed to multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, or long-form essays. Her tests aren’t linear or direct and neither are the responses. The answers can never be “correct.” The answers take up space, require time, bring up feelings, and inspire revelations. The answer isn’t a finite thing.

Sometimes we are lucky, and we can catch The Universe in her work. (She loves when this happens.) For example, she presents us with a circumstance, and it will look a lot like a situation we’ve been in before, but just different enough that it’s not apparent. Most of the time, her test is twinkling with familiarity but different enough that we can’t quite put our finger on why - leaving us unaware of the straightforward ways we have already prepared for it. We don’t know that we studied, that we know the answers.

But sometimes, we know.

She tested me at the end of 2018. At the time, I thought it might be a test in some small way, but the suspicion didn’t help. The test was brutal.

The test looked like this. I worked for a company that occupied a considerable amount of real estate in my identity back then. When a larger company acquired it, my role and the lifeblood of the organization changed in an instant.

My response to the news was…complicated. I felt hurt, frustrated, annoyed. I was indignant, resistant, and at times petulant. It felt like it was happening to me, and I didn’t have any control. (I hated that part the most.)

My test then, I think, was really about honesty with myself. What did I really want? Was I in the right place? Was I following my heart? Was I settling? Was I growing?

Over the course of a short few months, she asked me question after question, hidden in the form of conversations, contracts, actions, ailments, and dreams. Sometimes I was able to answer them, and sometimes I wasn’t. Either way, it was painful.

Last week, I got another test. My current employer, one that helped me step away from a tricky chapter last year, was just acquired by another, inspiring an eerie sense of deja vu. While the people, the companies, the actual business, my role, and almost everything else I can think of are technically different, the parallels between these situations are everywhere I look.

That’s how I know she’s testing me again. She found an opportunity to ask me, did you learn your lesson? and this is how she’s done it.

So. did I?

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