Oh so many things. Getting fired from a job I hated to find the best job I ever had. Confessing to my wife that I had been seeking love outside our marriage lead to my diagnosis, which probably saved my life. Getting kicked out of my house, which lead to me learning how to handle myself starting with nothing, having never found an apartment or a job before in my life. Not getting accepted at any school I was interested in. I was only accepted by the school I thought of as my safe school. I mean, I’d never heard of it before they sent me a letter asking me to apply. It turned out to be the perfect college for me. I made my most durable friends there. And it seems that that college I had never heard of was actually pretty damn prestigious. Who knew?
I don’t actually think it’s any big deal. Humans hit setbacks all the time. If you keep on going (and really, what other choice is there?), you do something else, and if that doesn’t work, you keep on trying something new until you find something you really enjoy. At that point, there really is no choice. You would not have gotten to the thing you like if you hadn’t gone through all that other stuff first. In truth, the difficult thing is to avoid making lemonade when you’ve managed to harvest a bagful of lemons.