When devastation and despair looms, it can be challenging to find the good in our daily lives and keep the things that scare us at bay.

In Night by Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born American professor, political activist, Nobel laureate and holocaust survivor, the author’s 12-year-old self asks persistent questions about suffering answered by his poor village mentor, Moishe the Beadle, who offered, “Every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer.” It may be less crucial to focus on an existential question that can never be answered than to dive deep into exploring the layered intricacies and nuances that birth more questions. Truth hides and we seek.

When faced with perilous life situations, the notion that everything is for the good can be hard to grasp. In these circumstances, many people often turn to faith or a higher power to ask, beseech or cry out. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, it is only when it’s dark enough that we can see the stars. Even in the worst circumstances, it is important to remember that something helpful, some truth, may be found.

Living life “b’ simcha” (Hebrew for “living in a state of joy”) can empower one to embrace an attitude and mindset of all things working together for good. In fact, happiness is derived from the Middle English word “hap” as in happenstance or haphazard, implying random chance or luck. It’s a fallacy that if you are lucky enough to be born into ideal circumstances, then you will be happy, and if not, there is not much you can do to change your sense of satisfaction in life.

How we view our life circumstances is a way of thinking, something we can consciously direct. Put simply by Plato: “Reality is created by the mind. We can change our reality by changing our mind.” It isn’t luck or happenstance that ensures our happiness, but the way we think about and process the circumstances we encounter along the way.

Resiliency is an important factor in having a mindset that everything is ultimately working out for the good. As I wrote in my doctoral dissertation, “Study of Attachment Through Relational Models of Therapy” “Many individuals, regardless of lifestyle, cultural diversity, differences in family patterns and relationships, face serious crises at some point in the life cycle. They become temporarily less functional, in some cases dysfunctional, in response to persistent stressors, whatever the etiology. Some have called upon certain internal assets and strengths that allow them to rebound from adverse situations, and in some cases, severe traumatic events.”

There lies within the human spirit a desire to forge ahead, push through no matter how difficult the circumstance, with the belief that if one leaps, the net will appear, and, to focus less on our material wants and needs and seek to positively impact the lives of others.

Is it all for the good? Without offering mind-numbing hope as we all continue living life on life’s terms, within the depths of my soul where questions and answers ultimately unite as one, I emphatically believe it is.

Dr. Amy Austin is a licensed marriage and family therapist (MFC#41252) and doctor of clinical psychology in Rancho Mirage. She can be reached at (760) 774.0047.