Do you believe the universe tries to tell us things

I’m not so sure. People who pick the right six numbers in lotto before the draw. (I’ve got them all right a few times but only after the draw.)

There’s got to be cosmic intervention there, surely. Otherwise how would they know to get the numbers right?

That's really not difficult to explain. It's just chance. The person you picked up from has to live somewhere. Why not next door to your future home? Imagine you move there, and end up marrying the neighbour, or move there and and the roof leaks and the person who comes to fix it is your future spouse..you'd never have met them if the roof hadn't leaked! If you'd moved somewhere else with a good roof but crap electrics, maybe you'd marry the electrician. It's random.

I know people who are married to the person their fresher year uni room was next to. They could have been allocated differently, got a different A level result and gone elsewhere...there are an infinite number of possibilities and whatever it whoever we end up with is just the result of what we do about the people and things that cross our path. Had any of those things listed above been different, you'd marry someone different and probably think they were equally wonderful.

Coincidences are just that.

You get odd coincidences in life that are sometimes difficult to explain. Earlier this year I picked up some items off Freegle a mile away from my home on a street I’d never been to in my life. Just weeks later I was offered the tenancy next door to the house I visited.

No. The universe isn't conscious. It's just a vast heap of nothingness with a sprinkling of stuff. And, even if you imagine all of those hugely dispersed scraps of stuff could think, how arrogant do you have to be to believe they're thinking about you - and sending you signs??!

Get over yourself.

All I know is that I've tried to tell the universe a lot of things and, perhaps, instruct and influence it in some way. But it appears to have more inertia than I do, so my policy nowadays is rolling with the punches.

Heh. We as a species have been trying to figure out, quantify and utilise this concept since consciousness evolved. Religion, philosophy, magical thinking....

Personally I think everything is connected as Dirk Gently would say. We are balls in a continual game of roulette and whether it's random or whether there is meaning is a conundrum that cannot be resolved because it's too complex to grasp. Detached awareness is a tricky thing to master in that as soon as one attaches meaning or emotion to things, it alters everything and can lead us down rocky paths indeed.

Ultimately if things aren't working one can actively change things or wait and see what happens. In either case if you don't like the outcome, rinse and repeat trying different things.

I think our big mistake is thinking of "the Universe" as a separate sentient entity with power if its own, when we're all part of existence ergo the Universe.... without consciousness nothing would exist at all and nothing would have meaning......

PS. The Universe is also Fight Club lol 😉

It's not mystical, you just don't like where you're living.

Objectively my kids aren't "amazing" actually. I don't really like one of them quite a lot of the time, one isn't doing great in school, they don't win prizes and they're quite selfish. But they are my kids so unless they do something truly awful then I'll continue to love them as a parent should. What I'm saying is that whichever genetic combination my children had ended up with, or any of us do is just chance. If my mum and married someone other than my dad "I" would be someone else, would have had a different childhood, leading most likely to a different career, met different people etc. there's no "right" path or doing what you're meant to be doing. You just have to be pro-active. The pp who said "shit happens" and you cope, make choices etc had it on P1.

Please read my subsequent posts. I work with many people of faith and admire them enormously. But they acknowledge how difficult this is and don't just say "trust in God and it's all fine" They don't say if life is shitting on you you are doing something wrong as the pp I was replying to inferred.

I don’t think like this and don’t think things happen for a reason because many things that happen are shit aren’t they. Things happen and you make the best of any situation you are thrown in to.

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I imagine the universe is largely indifferent to us.

However, our brains are very complex and I believe we notice things and put them together in different ways accordingly.

No I believe in chance and coincidence, but I do believe in listening to your gut feeling, even if it's not what you always want to hear.

Same here. The universe isn't a sentient being, it doesn't have any supernatural powers, but God does.

I presume that poster was calling thinking the universe is telling you something ‘privileged’ because you think the Universe is particularly trying to guide you to a better life, whilst leaving ( or even worse, guiding) billions of other people through history and contemporary to awful fates and experiences.

That does fit the dictionary definition of privilege meaning an individual or group of people given special rights or benefits not afforded to others

What you call 'fight against it or accept fate' I call adjusting your decisions to take account of new evidence and experience.

Normal life experience and decision-making surely?

What would seem to me strange and unusual, would be making a major decision based on best available evidence at that time, then refusing ever to re-examine that decision and adapt your actions in the face of changed circumstance and greater experience.

Why would you do that? What would you be trying to prove about your past decision-making? Seems like stubbornness trumping wisdom.

Of course it bloody doesn’t. Unless it’s telling people o drive that day on that route, because it wants them to die in a car crash. Or walk home at that time by that route as it wants them to be sexually assaulted.
Think of all the crimes, and massacres and historical atrocities you can think of. Was the universe telling all those people to be there at that time as it wanted that horror to befall them?

As others have said universe is a substitute for God .

My niece, 4 ( different to one I ve previously written about ) was born with an enzyme deficiency which will likely mean she ll be dead before 20 . This is genetic and resessive and no previous family history . About 1 in 100,000 births have this condition.

If some higher being is responsible for that in order to either punish or get me / my brother to do something , then they are a machievian sadist and I ve got no time for them .

@Hateam "I believe shit happens.
That's where my deep thinking ends and my problem solving begins."

Excellent post.

I'm sorry for your losses. Dealing with grief is hard enough and it's made so much harder if you're a long way away.

I get the idea of thinking that the universe is telling you something but I don't believe it to be real. I think it's closer to the Baader-Meinhof effect, where you've already got something on your mind and you're now super sensitive to anything that seems like it matches.

But let's say the universe really does change things to nudge us in one direction or another - did the universe make your local schools not very good? Did the universe literally cause people you love to die to prompt you to move back home? If so, that's a universe that is both petty and cruel.

What has happened is that you've moved, things are more difficult than you imagined, and you've had a run of issues back home. That's not the universe telling you anything, that's just life. Good things happen and bad things happen. It's not directed at you.

No, I don't believe that. However, I refuse to live a life that doesn't suit me so will happily change things to improve my life. I don't believe we should have to push through when it's not working. I'm risk averse and try to carefully think through every outcome before changing though, my gut usually leads me to the right decision.

DH has been working a job for 15yrs and the last 5 have been awful for him, every day I've told him to change, even if it costs us more. Finally, he is interviewing and his light and happiness is returning.

That is your subconscious talking. If you want to go home, go.

No, I don’t think there’s any higher power telling you to do stuff, it’s just life isn’t it. I moved away, not another country but 5hrs drive and not always easy to get back. When my dad was dying it was incredibly hard. I’d have moved back years ago but kids in schools etc, currently have 2yrs left. I think there comes a point you have to consider if current set up still works for you. Some people never return home, that’s fine, as it’s a decision we can only take based on our individual circumstances

But what you are talking about is having insight and intuition beyond your existing conscious train of thought. Yes of course listen to that. Use it as a starting point for identifying different trains of thought that might not obviously relate to your current plan or choices. Think about why you feel the way you do. Allow different feelings and ideas to emerge. Give them space to grow and join up. Examine them. Think about where you are now and where you could be at a point in the future if plan a, b or c.