I learned about the cosmic joke during a spiritual retreat about five years ago. For hours-proper hours, we’re talking maniacal laughter, uncontrollable giggles, the kind where your face hurts-I couldn’t stop laughing. And I wasn’t laughing at anything specific. I was laughing at everything. The whole absurdity of it all.
The cosmic joke, as it came to me, is this: everything is exactly as it’s meant to be. You’re doing exactly what you’re meant to do, at exactly the right time, in exactly the right dimension. Because our experience on Earth is about learning, exploring, and experimenting. There’s no right path. There’s no wrong path. On a cosmic level, it’s literally impossible to be doing anything wrong.
Now, before you think I’ve gone completely soft and you should just lie on the sofa eating biscuits whilst chaos unfolds around you-hear me out. Yes, in our Earth human-bound lives, we have societal expectations. Actions have consequences. Some of those consequences might not give us the results we were hoping for. But here’s the thing: that’s all very much part of the human experience. The cosmic joke doesn’t let you off the hook. It does the opposite.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you how I actually learned this.
The Divorce That Didn’t Matter
I went through a messy divorce about six years ago. I was in pain, frustrated, shocked. When I found myself at that spiritual retreat, I was still very much caught in it. So I asked the retreat facilitators-or more accurately, I asked the universe directly-“What about my divorce? How do I move past this?”
And the answer that came back was immediate and almost violent: It doesn’t matter.
I pushed back. But what about my divorce?
It doesn’t matter.
Yeah, but what about-
It doesn’t matter.
This wasn’t flippant. It wasn’t dismissive. It was something else entirely. And as I sat with it, a visualisation came through. I saw a line-maybe just a few inches across-suspended in front of my eyes. Intuitively, I understood what it was: my life. Seventy, maybe eighty years, from beginning to end. And there, roughly halfway along this tiny line, was the smallest bump you could imagine.
That bump was my divorce.
I remember this moment of clarity: If my divorce occupies only one or two years out of seventy or eighty, then… it doesn’t really matter.
But then the image shifted. The timeline didn’t just show my current life. It expanded. I could see lives before this one, lives after this one, stretching out infinitely in both directions. Suddenly, my entire current lifetime-let alone the divorce within it-wasn’t even a grain of sand. It was less than that. It was nothing.
And that’s when the peace came. Not the “everything’s fine, nothing matters” kind of peace. The other kind: the peace of perspective. Of stepping outside the frame for just long enough to see that what felt catastrophic in the moment was, actually, exactly what was supposed to be happening. And not because God or the universe was punishing me or testing me. But because on some level, I’d chosen it. I’d agreed to this experience. And there was nothing wrong with that.
You Already Know
Here’s the thing about profound spiritual experiences-and I mean any profound spiritual experience, whether it’s during a retreat, in meditation, in therapy, on a walk in nature, or just in a quiet moment when everything suddenly clicks into place: they don’t give you new information.
They remind you of what you already know.
I’ve come out of countless spiritual experiences thinking, I knew that already. And that’s not disappointment talking. That’s actually the whole point. These experiences-they’re not about downloading some cosmic truth from an external source. They’re about bringing what’s already sitting in your subconscious into your conscious awareness so you can actually live it.
This is the difference between religion and the cosmic joke.
Religion says: “Here’s the doctrine. Here’s the path. Follow it. Don’t question. A book, a leader, a system has the answers-you just need to obey.” It’s comfortable, in a way. Someone else has done the thinking for you.
The cosmic joke says: “You have all the wisdom you need. Your job-the actual work-is to discover it. To recognise it. To trust it enough to live by it.”
And that’s terrifying for some people. Because it means you’re responsible. There’s no external authority to blame when things don’t go to plan.
But it’s also liberating as hell.
The Girl Who Already Knew
I worked with a woman-let’s call her Sophie-who’d just ended a long-term relationship. She was in that raw, disorienting space where everything felt uncertain. She’d been offered plenty of advice from friends, family, podcasts, other therapists. Take time to heal. Consider relocating. Start fresh. Don’t make any big decisions yet. Opinions everywhere. External voices all trying to guide her toward what they thought was “the right choice.”
She came to me because she wanted me to tell her what to do. Should she pack up her life and move overseas? Should she stay put and rebuild locally? What was the right answer?
We talked for a while. And somewhere in the middle of the conversation, she paused. Her eyes went a bit distant. And then she said: “I already know what I want to do, don’t I? I’ve known for weeks. I’m just… scared it’s the wrong choice.”
That was it. The cosmic joke, right there.
She didn’t need me to tell her. She needed to hear herself say it. She needed permission to trust what she already knew. And here’s what was underneath the fear: she was convinced there was a right choice and a wrong choice. And if she picked wrong, she’d somehow fail at being human. She’d made a mistake that couldn’t be recovered from.
But that’s not how it works. There’s no wrong choice-there’s just the choice you’re making and the learning that comes with it. On a cosmic level, she couldn’t actually be doing anything wrong. She could only be learning, exploring, experiencing. Yes, her choice would have real consequences she’d have to navigate as a human being in an earthly life. Yes, some outcomes would feel better than others. But on a deeper level? There was no judgment. No cosmic “you got it wrong.”
Once she felt that-truly felt it-the paralysis lifted. Not because I gave her an answer. But because she’d given herself permission to trust the answer she already had.
The Paradox That Sets You Free
Here’s where a lot of people get confused. They think the cosmic joke means: Nothing matters, so I can do whatever I want and face no consequences.
Spiritual bypass, we call it. Using cosmic acceptance as an excuse to avoid responsibility.
But that’s not the joke. The joke is the opposite. Once you recognise that you’re not wrong for making any choice-that you’re simply learning and experiencing-you become more responsible, not less. Because you’re owning it. You’re not blaming the universe, God, your ex, your circumstances, or a self-help book. You’re saying: This is my life. I’m making this choice. I’m responsible for what comes next.
That’s where real power lives. Full responsibility + zero cosmic judgment = freedom.
You’re not afraid of making the wrong choice anymore, because you can’t make a wrong choice. There’s only the choice you’re making and the person you’re becoming through it.
So What Now?
The real value of the cosmic joke isn’t intellectual. It’s not something you think your way into. It’s something you feel into. You embody it. You live it.
And yes, it takes work. Because we’re human. We forget. We get caught back up in the panic, the urgency, the sense that there’s a “right way” to be living and we’re somehow failing at it. We look outside ourselves for the answers again-another book, another coach, another guru, another system.
But every time you remember-every time you step back far enough to see the bigger perspective, to recognise that you already know what you need to know-you’re living the joke. You’re claiming your own authority. You’re saying: I trust myself.
And that’s when life gets interesting. Because you stop waiting for permission. You stop looking for the “right” answer from someone else. You start moving. You start creating. You start living as the expert on your own life.
Which, spoiler alert, you always were.
