Thank god things didnt work out the way you wanted

[Ontobetterthings]

Anyone else relieved that something you really wanted didn't work out.

I was just reflecting and years ago I was so upset that I didnt get a promotion in a certain field and tried many times to move up. After the final time I completely gave up. I cried my eyes out for days and left and retrained to eventually a much better career with great prospects. I am just so relieved it did not work out. Aibu to think these things happen for a reason?

It's not decided. It's all just chance. For me, anyway, as an atheist. It's the only thing that makes any sense.

Things don’t happen for a reason as that means everything has been pre-ordained and that is simply not realistic. Decisions have outcomes, you can’t always predict what they might be. Even if one believed in god it is unrealistic to think ‘god’ is planning and plotting every move every human has ever made. And if you don’t believe in god then who or what is plotting out your future for you? I’m glad things worked out for you.

No it’s not and no we don’t. Do you believe the victims of Ted Bundy were meant to meet him so they could be murdered or do you only apply it to nice things or valuable lessons learnt? What about children who are abducted and murdered, was that meant to be too?

Long distant ex was awful and I was devastated when we split up. But he let his mask slip in public, pushed me against a wall and shouted in my face, and as a result my friends dragged me out that night and I met my now DH.

I had a job I didn’t like. Was let go due to new shop not being ready with the expectation I’d come back a month or so later.
Got a job in the interim and that company has seen me move, retrain and get promoted. Am still there 10 years later.

And the big one. DH and I have adopted our LO but the process was delayed and slow. We should have been approved in January 24 and there was a child our social worker had in mind as a match for us.
Approval panel was delayed by 8 weeks and that child was matched elsewhere. I was so upset, felt like things were never going to work out and it was heartbreaking.
2 months later we were approved and a month later we were matched with our LO. He’s awesome, the exact child that should be here. Can’t imagine it the timescales being different or it being anyone else.

Yes sadly I do. We all have a specific time on this earth.

Hahaha brilliant

I tried desperately to make a career in my own country, it did not happen, tried desperately to retain a job just to pay the bills, this did not happen, migrated to one EU country and tried living with a boyfriend, this didn't happen, came to the UK and then tried to come back to my country 5 times - this didn't happen and finally met an Englishman and this finally happened, goodness. I definitely believe God has us on a pre-planned journey

I tried to change careers and cities. I had trained in the career and had previously lived in the city but despite being the preferred candidate they didn't offer the job to anyone. I was gutted! I felt stuck in my job and stuck in my city. I speculatively applied for a job in my friend's city in the same industry I'd been in and got it. Moved there met DH never actually moved into the career I'd trained for and very happily married doing a tangential job to my original career and nothing to do with the new trained career I never got to use! I thought I wanted something but I cannot thank my lucky starts enough that I didn't get what I wanted. It's now my nearest city and I wouldn't live there if you gave me a free home! And I have zero interest in that career although I did use some of it in a meeting today completely surprising my boss!

I’m really happy I didn’t marry a man I was engaged to.
He turned out to be a psychopath. No exaggeration.

Oh lots of times.

Aged 18 I didn’t get into the university I wanted. I went to another one and met my husband on the first day there. My life would be so so different had I got into that first university.

Completely agree that ‘things don’t happen for a reason’. There’s good luck and bad luck and we should appreciate the good luck when it happens. I failed a significant test at university. I went back to my office and cried. A young woman opposite me came to comfort me. We became friends and she eventually introduced me to my now DH. I am so thankful that I failed that test.

That’s horrible. What has our time on earth got to do with it? If you believe murderers are deliberately put in the path of children by design, then that to me is warped thinking, and very distasteful. Who is this co-ordinator plotting these deeply unpleasant meetings?

You could have met a different future husband and be totally unaware of the one you have. If you think about it every meeting of new people is a form of chance; the area your parents chose to bring you up in, the school you went to, the party you went to, the shop you went to, I mean everything is a potential destiny moment one way or the other.

Do you why? Why would god pre-plan children being murdered? Why would he pre-plan someone getting sexually assaulted? What are your thoughts about such pre-planned journeys?

Just missed the grade on one subject to get my already offered spot in a patricularly hard to get into university course. In retrospect, I would have hated that job in the long term, I just didn't know what to do with my life at age 17. Did another course with a subject I was pretty ok at, and now i'm in the top level of my field and it gave me the ability to move to a foreign country, which the first option would never have done I strongly subscribe to the whats for you won't go past you mentality in life, but understand that there are choices and privilege which also help, and to each their own.

Quite.
It tends to be people whose lives have gone well who believe in this “for a reason” crap.

Did God always plan for my daughter to have cancer? He’s a complete bastard if so.

I think the "God" explanation is just some people's way of coping with the fact that we have no control over outcomes, and reassuring themselves that it's all for the best. Life can be rather anxiety inducing!

I am genuinely shocked that people today believe in the ‘everything happens for a reason’ trope. It is the most ridiculous, not to mention offensive, viewpoint anyone who has at least some education can have. Sophisticated people can't really believe our every decision or situation is pre-planned from a script? Everyone of us ever supposedly has a pre-written script from birth to death? It can’t even be from a religious viewpoint because those same people would most likely say prayers, which would be pointless under those circumstances. Why can’t people accept that things just happen, sometimes they are good things and sometimes they are bad things. They were not written at conception.

Sorry about your daughter and no, it certainly did not happen ‘for a reason’, unless the author of her script was a psycho.

But you can be grateful/relieved at the better outcome without bringing magic or the supernatural into it.

Not really, because the relief is all part of recognising that things happen randomly. Whereas belief in divine control means you no longer have to worry about anything, because "someone up there" has it all sussed, even if you don't understand what's going on. It's a way of tricking your brain into "gratitude" mode whatever the outcome. Sort of forcing yourself into a "glass half full" approach.

(I am not a God person BTW, but I can understand why such thinking holds some appeal!)

Thank you @BunnyLake .

It’s such a self-centred philosophy, though @Beachtastic . “I ultimately got a good outcome, so god must have had a plan”

What about others whose fortunes were not so good? Did god forsake them? Did they deserve it?

Not exactly that same, but I went back to work when my baby was only 11 weeks old. I desperately didn’t want to.

But, two months later, I started studying for a professional qualification which is the best thing I’ve ever done.

A house I wanted someone else put in a better offer I was gutted but then a few weeks later I found the cottage that I’m currently in and am so glad I didn’t get the other house.

I’ve also alternated good luck and bad luck when it comes to the sale and purchase of houses… ultimately ending up in a house I absolutely love for a good price.

As several PP have said though, we don’t know what the alternative would have been to the path we ended up on; we have no reason to think it would not have been as good, or even better.

Well I guess all the people on here who believe everything happens for a reason are also very religious. You can’t really believe that pre-scripted stuff unless you also believe in the supernatural.

One thing I am sure about is even people who believe in things happening for a reason would know to only ever say it when the outcome is good. No one is telling that to someone who is suffereing a great grief. That’s got to say something hasn’t it?

Whenever I am glad the outcome turned out better I’m just glad it did, I don’t feel any need to think I was following a script as if I’m in The Truman Show.

I don’t understand what you mean by ‘not really’. Of course you don’t have to attribute things to magic.