Don’t Marry Your Triggers: Just Because You Survived Doesn’t Mean It Was the Best Way

We’ve all done things that, in hindsight, we wouldn’t recommend to others. Whether it's a reckless decision in our youth, a relationship we stayed in too long, or a shortcut we took that luckily didn’t blow up in our faces. But surviving something doesn’t make it wise. And yet, there’s a strange tendency in our culture to take our personal experiences (especially the ones that didn’t destroy us) and turn them into rallying cries.

If you were in a car accident and weren’t wearing a seatbelt, and somehow walked away unscathed, you wouldn’t tell people not to wear a seatbelt. You’d recognize you were blessed and still tell your friends to buckle up. So why do we treat moral, emotional, and spiritual decisions any differently?

Let’s break this down:

1. Surviving ≠ Thriving

Just because a poor decision didn’t destroy you doesn’t mean it was a good one. Survival is not the same as flourishing. When we use our survival as justification for repeating risky behavior or encouraging it in others, we’re confusing “got through it” with “chose wisely.”

Think about it: if someone smokes for years and doesn’t get lung cancer, we don’t take that as proof smoking is healthy. Yet in areas like sex, relationships, or lifestyle choices, we often say, “It worked out for me!” as if that’s a green light for everyone else. But grace doesn’t turn bad choices into good wisdom. You are just abusing God's grace.

2. Your Experience Isn’t the Standard

Our stories matter, but they aren’t the rulebook. Just because you did things out of order and it “worked out” doesn’t mean that’s the standard we should promote. This especially applies to things like waiting for sex until marriage. If someone shares that they believe waiting is better, and your first reaction is defensiveness, pause and ask yourself why.

Maybe you didn’t wait. Maybe your relationship still turned out okay. But is that the hill to die on? We shouldn't frame morality around what we did, but around what is good, wise, and worth aspiring to. Encouraging others to skip wisdom because we did and “got away with it” is self-centered and short-sighted.

3. We Defend Our Past to Protect Our Pride

Often, we double down on our choices not because they were good, but because we’re afraid of what it means to admit they weren’t. If someone suggests a better way (like saving sex for marriage) it can feel like an attack on our story. But it’s not. It's an invitation to humility.

We need to stop marrying our triggers. Just because a certain truth makes you uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It might just mean there’s healing or growth that still needs to happen. Let’s stop defending poor decisions to protect our egos and start pursuing truth, even when it stings.

4. Promote Wisdom, Not Exception

We should be promoting wisdom, not anomalies. Just because someone survived jumping from a roof into a pool doesn’t mean you hand out diving boards and blindfolds. In the same way, we should advocate for choices that lead to healthy, whole lives, even if they weren’t the choices we made ourselves.

It takes maturity to say, “I did it differently, but I still believe this is the better way.” That’s not hypocrisy; that’s growth. We don’t need to create a narrative that justifies our past. We need to guide others toward a wiser future...even if it costs us our pride.

You don’t need to marry your triggers. You can love your story without defending every part of it. You can celebrate God’s grace without using it as an excuse to reject truth. And you can acknowledge where you went wrong without losing your dignity. That's maturity. That's growth. That makes you wise counsel.

So let’s unhook from the need to be right about our past and lean into the courage to point others toward better paths. Even if we didn’t take them ourselves.