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Original poster

To think that maybe everything does happen for a reason?

78 replies

Writerwannabe83 · 12/04/2016 23:17

Does anyone think that our lives are planned out for us and that everything happens for a reason?

Have you ever had bad things happen which at the time makes you feel pretty bleak but in hindsight you thought that the event steered your life in a direction it otherwise wouldn't have and therefore it was "supposed to happen"?

Or is life just full of coincidences?

OP posts:
Agadooo · 13/04/2016 18:51

Definitely not! No reason why some things happen-I've just read (couldn't even read it all) an article about 2 women abusing their own baby for the first 2 years of his life before he died after all of the horrific daily abuse he suffered-crying just thinking about it.

Sallystyle · 13/04/2016 18:52

Well, I am still trying to work out a 'higher' reason for my children losing their young dad to cancer.

Has it opened doors for them? Nope. Have they learned something from it that is so awesome it lessens their grief? No.

Has my abusive dad made me stronger? No. I am the person I am despite him. I wouldn't have had half as many struggles if I had a good childhood. Oh I learnt a lot of lessons but I would have learnt them through life anyway.

I actually find the 'everything happens for a reason' bullshit to be quite offensive.

CurtainsForYouFred · 13/04/2016 19:02

NO.
Jesus, can you imagine if children being sexually abused, or genocide, or famine were all part of life's plan? You'd juyst give up.

Snoopydo · 13/04/2016 19:07

I think life is just luck or bad luck of the draw. Things just happen.

However I read a book once which asked if something bad happened for a reason, what would it be? I found it helpful to look at what I had learnt when life was tough eg I was very ill in my student days and it definitely made me a more compassionate person. My dc have special needs. Why me? Maybe it teaches me to not be so selfish, lazy and complacent. Finding the positive in difficult situations can help.

expatinscotland · 13/04/2016 19:08

'I think I'm with the train of thought that sometimes bad things just happen to people and trying to find a positive within it can sometimes just be a coping mechanism. Maybe thinking that something good has come from the negative event can help people cope.'

WTAF?! Do you realise how facile and offensive that is to so many?

There is ZERO positive in the death of my 9-year-old daughter. Do you really think people find something good out of something like that and it helps them to cope?

Shit happens. It happens to all kinds of people. There is FA reason why.

AppleyName · 13/04/2016 19:12

Well of course everything happens for a reason. There's always a reason for something to happen - poor choices, bad weather, psychopathic murderers, the lottery numbers being picked in the right order, etc.

But is everything 'supposed' to happen? No, absolutely not.

If something bad happened and then later on something good happened, that just means that people are adaptable and resilient and can move on and create and spot new opportunities.

Also, you've got nothing to post it against. No control parallel life to show that the new course your life took after the bad event is actually better than if the bad event hasn't happened.

Maybe you get run over by a car and meet your DH while you're having physio and live happily ever after.

But maybe if you didn't get run over by a car, you would've bumped into David Beckham/Benedict Cumberbatch/whoever round the next corner and he would've instantly fallen in love with you.

Things just happen. That's it.

expatinscotland · 13/04/2016 19:13

'Why me? Maybe it teaches me to not be so selfish, lazy and complacent. Finding the positive in difficult situations can help.'

If that were true than why don't things like this happen to bastards like Slobodan Milosevic or Donald Trump? And the reason why they don't is because things just happen and there is no reason.

AppleyName · 13/04/2016 19:21

I was very ill in my student days and it definitely made me a more compassionate person

Yeah but that wasn't the reason you got ill in the first place. That's just a logical consequence of you having been ill.

AppleyName · 13/04/2016 19:24

Otherwise you're suing the reason you got ill was because you were lacking compassion and needed to 'learn' some.

If you extend that logic to something like expat's situation, it gets pretty dark pretty quickly. I don't think anyone 'needs' to learn that kind of lesson.

MrsDeVere · 13/04/2016 19:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Trills · 13/04/2016 19:28

Nope.

Everything does not happen for a reason.

There is no hidden plan.

No unseen hand guiding things.

When things go "wrong", and then turn out well, all it means is that you were not god at predicting the future. You thought oh no, everything is ruined now, but it worked out OK.

Don't think of it as fate, think of it as you not being omniscient.

When things don't go to plan you may find that, if you make the best of it, the life you are given works out better than the life you would have chosen.

(you may not of course)

expatinscotland · 13/04/2016 19:42

'When things don't go to plan you may find that, if you make the best of it, the life you are given works out better than the life you would have chosen.'

My only response to this is a great, big foxtrot oscar.

MrsDeVere · 13/04/2016 19:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SwingingFromTheChanderlier · 13/04/2016 19:47

Disagree.

Lost my big brother aged 10 to cancer. What reason is there? My parents went on for the sake of their other children but a shell of their former selves. Me? Bottled it all up and refused to cry until I hit my late teens, lost every ounce of confidence I had.

Similarly my DH was struck down with a serious illness that he was extremely lucky to survive but left him with a degree of brain damage. We are a few years on from that and are still facing its repercussions.

I have failed to find a reason to either.

Trills · 13/04/2016 19:52

expat I also said you may not.

I apologise if you thought that I was saying "make the best of it and everything will be good" - that was not my intention at all. Because sometimes something that appears to be shit is just shit.

My point was that people quoting times when things turned out well is absolutely NOT proof of the existence of fate. Only proof that you cannot predict the future.

The opposite happens too - people get the thing that they want and then find out that they are not happy.

expatinscotland · 13/04/2016 19:54

Aw, no, MrsD, we just need to make the best of it, so the life we have now is so much better than the one we planned, you know, the one which wasn't blighted by the abject and pitiful suffering of our children due to a horrid disease and by their premature death, which they were both frightened of but had to go through anyway. If only we just think positively and 'make the best of it', we'll find that silver lining. I definitely needed for my beautiful, loving, unselfish and thoughtful little girl to waste away and die, her lungs putrified, to teach me and lesson. I just know her siblings did, too, you know, they're so much improved by her death.

I cannot believe people are actually stupid enough to follow this line of thinking. It truly blows my mind. I hope they never have to go through what our family has.

Trills · 13/04/2016 20:00

I'm really very sorry.

I can see how what I said did not come across as I intended it AT ALL.

I said it badly, and in the wrong place.

It was intended as a reaction to people saying things like
"I thought xxx would be bad, but then it was good and I knew I had to go through it"
and to tell them that that's not proof of fate or destiny or karma, it's just how things turn out sometimes.

It obviously is not a useful thing to hear when something properly bad has happened, and does not apply at all in that situation.

Please accept my apologies.

Snoopydo · 13/04/2016 20:03

Oh I don't mean bad things happen to teach people a lesson. I definitely do not believe in karma although I am amazed at the number of people who do.

Terrifiedandregretful · 13/04/2016 20:07

I think good things can come out of bad, but that isn't the same thing as everything happening for a reason. In fact the idea of everything happening for a reason makes me cross. It only works if your life is basically ok. How can you hear about the poor toddler who was stamped on and killed, or Nazi death camps, or the millions of other horrific things in the world, and think everything happens for a reason?

Itinerary · 13/04/2016 20:12

Flowers to all who have gone through awful things.

Terrifiedandregretful · 13/04/2016 20:19

Just rtf. I think 'everything happens for a reason' is the absolute worst thing to say to someone going through a tough time. After my dad died after a hideous illness someone said it to me and it's the nearest I've come to hitting anyone in my life. I also left a 12 step group because every sodding meeting they said the line "nothing happens in God's world by mistake". I could not fathom how this God was supposed to help me with my addiction when he was deliberately causing so much suffering.

BlueJug · 13/04/2016 20:26

As previous pp's said - awful things happen and we just go on. Sometimes we make a good fist of it, sometimes we don't.

I have had disappointments that have turned out to guide me in a different direction and it has worked out well - not getting a job I wanted for example - but that is just me being young enough and having opportunities enough to re-think.

I have had a few very bad things happen - and there was no reason, and recovery has not been so good.

Terrible things do not happen "for a reason"

MrsDeVere · 13/04/2016 20:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BeastofCraggyIsland · 13/04/2016 20:42

No, I absolutely do not believe that anything happens for some kind of higher reason. Sometimes things happen that are just random, unlucky, unfair and utterly shit. Nothing can be learned from them and no good can ever come from them. Every cloud does not have a silver lining. Life can be indescribably cruel and unfair at times, for no reason at all.

To say 'everything happens for a reason' to someone going through a bereavement, serious illness or other such life-shatteringly terrible time is about one of the most crass and insensitive things I can think of.

popcornpaws · 13/04/2016 20:54

Totally agree with everything BeastofCraggyIsland said.