I have some background in science. I majored in biochemistry as an undergraduate, and studied neuroscience in graduate school. I performed a lot of scientific experiments those days.
Below is a typical scientific way of conducting experiments.
1. Make a hypothesis.
2. Plan experiments.
3. Perform them.
4. Gain results, whether they are positive or negative.
5. Accept or reject the hypothesis, and go to the next steps. (Return to 1 and repeat).
Do you think it's too inorganic and heartless? I sometimes think, however, that this is exactly what we do in our real lives. Let's see below.
1. Expect something.
2. Think what to do.
3. Take actions.
4. Succeed or fail.
5. Become happy or sad, and go to the next steps. (Return to 1 and repeat.)
Of course it's just a figure of speech, but if you would like, you can say that life is a series of experiments.
One of the benefits of seeing my life in that way is that I can think that any result is just a result. In a world of science, any results reported by scientists must be further inspected through a lot of additional examinations by taking a long time before they are approved as true and accurate. One result in one experiment is true only under a certain condition. So when something is going wrong in my life, I try to think in this way: "It is not yet the truth of universe that I am stupid. On the contrary, this is a good chance to reconsider the current conditions and methods I have taken."
This is just a kind of a thought experiment, though. It's not that I'm always able to follow this way of thinking. Unexpected things will always happen, whether you're living your life or performing a scientific experiment.