When we planned a trip to Vietnam, one question bothered me vaguely, at the back of my mind. ‘Why are we going to a country that was so devastated by war? Will it be too much to handle?‘ Luckily for me, I was too busy to actually think about it.

Places where trauma has happened almost scream back at you. In Berlin especially, one can feel the intensity of pain where the concentration camps once were. The Jallianwala Bagh still vibrates with intense pain, so does Cherokee, an American friend on this trip mentioned.

And yet, as we landed in Hanoi, I was struck by the absence of any such vibration. Indeed, all I could feel, was peace. I was very surprised. This country thrives. And it isn’t even the commotion that many people use to mask their pain. It was simply quiet. One normally finds stillness only in temples or sacred places. As far as countries go, Vietnam is the most ‘still’ country I’ve ever been to. It was amazing to see such hard working people, not driven by a desire to

Our surprise intensified when we visited the War Museum in Saigon (It is called Ho Chi Minh City now, but I somehow still prefer Saigon, like many of Southern Viets). This museum showcased thousands of photographs taken during the Vietnam war, showing how people suffered. The Americans violated international laws and agreements and flooded their rivers for 10 years, with highly toxic chemicals. Not only did this destroy the lives of many alive at the time, but also deformed babies that were being born. The result is handicapped people, still being born decades later.

I have a fairly small threshold for intense stuff, and I spent most of my time in this museum trying not to burst into tears and resisting the desire to run out. It was hard not to hate the Americans by the time we left the museum, even more so because they still continue to hurt entire countries. Even so – if we found it hard to forgive after a couple hours of seeing photographs, how could these people, having directly borne the atrocities, move on?

The USA still spends money on Vietnam war veterans – apart from everything else, they needed therapy for years. How did Vietnam move on? We finally asked someone.

‘Everybody wants to win’ she said, explaining away all the horrors of the war. ‘We just focus on the present. Now we have welcomed Americans and Australians into the country, and hugged them. We treat them as friends.’ There were no traces of bitterness or hatred in her voice, or on her face.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It couldn’t be that simple. How does one simply move on, deciding to work on building a better future? As a therapist I know that just that much would only lead to suppression, and an eventual need for therapy. It couldn’t be the complete story.

The real answer occurred to me a couple of days later. It really boils down to a deceptively simple phrase. Shit happens.

Sounds trivial, doesn’t it? Reducing all of that pain and healing, to two words? But when you really understand and integrate this phrase into your life, it can make a world of a difference.

Our story isn’t meant to be perfect. Nature didn’t intend for life to be a bed of roses. Life isn’t fair. But growing up listening to fairy tales with ‘lived happily ever after’ endings teach us something else. ‘Good things happen to good people’ is a dangerous lie we grow up with. No, they don’t.

We’ve formed a wide set of belief systems in a bid to find some security in an unpredictable world. We convince ourselves that if we act a certain way, things won’t go wrong, that there will be no suffering. This is all a lie, and if anything, it only creates more suffering. Won’t one just be left asking ‘But I pray everyday/ go to church every week/ I’ve never hurt anyone, why did this still happen to me?’ A lion doesn’t ask a deer about its moral conduct, before it kills it. There is no real insurance against misery.

And having battled outsiders for many decades, maybe even centuries, it is only natural for the Viets to know this. She was right. Everybody wants to win, and wars of all things, are not fair.

When we learn to accept the calamities of life as a part of life, we don’t cry out in pain asking ‘why me?’ There is no sense of entitlement, something the current generation across the world is infected with, explaining the growing need for therapy and the increasing incapacity of people to function effectively. And without this sense of entitlement, there is no need to place the blame – either on others’ or one’s own shoulders. One can just move on.