Trapped in a Deadlock Between Confusion, Frustration and Wonder

I was reading through a blog recently and its author made reference to their current circumstances as though they felt like punishment for something they've done wrong in their past. I've personally felt this way myself and what makes it so frustrating is when you look into your past and you simply cannot find an answer to "what did I do so wrong to deserve this?"

When you have this notion of punishment, it's much easier to come to terms with yourself and accept it when you can at least know "why" your life might be a mess of sorts. If you've been accurately convicted of murder and sentenced to death, at least you would understand why your circumstances are as they are, you killed someone. But without being able to figure out why, you're trapped in a deadlock between confusion, frustration and wonder.

But say all your life, you've been a good person, always putting others before yourself or just simply never hurting others along the way. All the sudden, you've been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Cancer, Meningitis or whatever illness or even badly injured in an accident where you're not the least at fault. These things can not only kill you, they can cause extreme pain that you have to endure to the very end. That constant pain serves as a continuous reminder to ask yourself "what did I do to deserve this?"

Then you start asking a lot of "what if" questions with regards to your past. And your mind starts racing and rewriting a dream woven history. But you still end up right back to where you started, "why?" You know you can't physically rewrite history, yet if only for a temporary escape, you loose yourself in the fantasy of what could have been.