Sometimes in life, we all just get used to going with the flow. Flexibility is often the key to keeping your stress levels low and it can help to avoid conflict. But a lot of the time, people forget to ask, "Why?" The frustrating part about it can be that often the "why?" isn't apparent immediately. Sometimes it takes years for it to finally be recognized. Even so, it's still an important question to ask yourself.

Understanding why things happen is one of the main principles of science. It's often the main purpose of holding a debrief after anything from a meeting, to a military operation, or an experiment. But in life, nobody makes you stay an extra four minutes for a debrief. So you have to start debriefing yourself.

The real reason "why" is so important is because it governs everything we do. You wouldn't put hours of work into something if it's pointless. And you wouldn't stop halfway through something if you knew that your life depended on you finishing it. These are kind of extreme ends of the spectrum, but they get the point across.

You need to start asking yourself why you do something. Why do I roll over in bed on Sundays instead of getting up to workout? Why do I hate getting up for school on Monday mornings? Why do I always wait until the last minute to memorize something for a test? Figuring out why you do things and using that "why" to change your habits is the key to making your life more productive.

On a different end of the spectrum, sometimes we look back at things we cannot control and wonder "Why did that happen?" And the frustrating part is that sometimes we can't immediately find an answer. One of the hardest things for me to understand the past year has been, "Why did I have to break my arm last year?" And I honestly could not find a great answer. Often the default answer for me is that God has a plan and sometimes we don't understand it, but it re-directs us to where we need to go. And after going through two surgeries, months of physical therapy, and just pure frustration with the situation, I was finally medically cleared. Until four months later when I broke my other arm. I honestly still don't have an answer on why I broke my arm the second time.

Both breaks were results of freak things occurring. But what I can tell you is that being a little over a year past the first break, I've started to understand it a little more. I got much closer with some of my friends, especially the ones who really looked out for me and helped me with basic skills the first couple of weeks and months of recovery. And this really nice guy I met and became really good friends with on my first day of marching with the Pride of Minnesota Marching Band, who also went with me to all four of the surgeries I've had, is really the sweetest boyfriend you could have. And I might not be 11 months into a relationship with him if I had not broken my arm. I might still be hating studying engineering if I had not broken my arm. And I might even be a whole different person if I had not broken my arm.

Your life and everything you do shapes you. All of your experiences make up who you are and why you do the things you do. Things in life tend to happen for a reason. Sometimes why they happen isn't very clear. Sometimes we don't understand it until months or even years down the road. But one thing seems to be certain, and that is that it all happens, for better or for worse, to shape you into the individual you are meant to be. And, even though sometimes we don't necessarily like the process, it will eventually prepare us for and bring us to our purpose in life.