Do you believe in this often said term?

[Kate879]

I’ve had some bad news this week re. my job security and I know people are trying to be helpful but “everything happens for a reason” isn’t a consolation at the moment.

Do you believe that to be true?

It’s inane claptrap.

You might end up looking back on bad things that happened and reflecting on how things turned out better than you thought at the time, or led you to new things, but there’s no mystical guiding force that plots it all out as The Reason.

I think that the problem is that humans look for patterns. It’s always possible to relate back from something and find a “reason”. But one thing always leads to another. There’s always a chain of events. If one thing hadn’t happened then something else would’ve happened and that, too, would have been a “reason”.

@Kate879 technically I suppose it’s true, there are reasons why everything happens it’s just often they’re not positive or particularly fair.

The phrase is interpreted to mean that ultimately something better will happen as a result but that’s not what the words literally mean. For example being made redundant, the actual reason is company restructuring but someone might try to put a positive spin on if that it gave the person a push to try something new. You broke your leg because the steps were icy, that’s the reason but someone could argue that it made you take stock of your life and what’s important, not taking your mobility for granted and giving you a new perspective.

So yes everything happens for a reason because that’s how things work but it doesn’t necessarily mean it was for a good reason or will have a positive ‘karmic’ outcome.

I dont believe in fate or destiny as per this saying.
However i do believe that sometimes bad things often unlock much better opportunities

No. It's total bollocks. Like "fate", "karma" or "the one".

Utter nonsense.

It’s a bit trite but assuming the people saying it were doing so with the right intentions/from a good place, I wouldn’t hold it against them.

Sorry about your bad news @Kate879. I’ve been made redundant twice throughout my nearly 30 years of working and it does feel rubbish, so you truly have my empathy. However, I would say that whilst the uncertainty and upheaval involved is never pleasant, in almost all of the redundancy situations I’m personally aware of over the years, each person ended up much happier, with roles elsewhere, working for better companies and getting higher pay/enhanced benefits.

The best of luck to you - I hope everything works out.

It’s trite, meaningless bullshit and a colossally insensitive thing to say to someone who has had a hard time.

No, it’s rubbish. And can be hugely hurtful. I had 5 miscarriages before my first child and the number of people who used the phrase as if it was in any way helpful or supportive was staggering. There was a reason, my body couldn’t sustain a pregnancy without the right meds and we hadn’t worked out what they were yet but fuckssake I didn’t need people yapping on in such a glib fashion as yet again I went through such an awful experience. “I’m really sorry” would have done the job.

I think it can help some people to try and fit a narrative to their own suffering and give the experience some sort of meaning. Problem is it can be applied to all suffering, sometimes suffering is going to be completely pointless and achieve nothing.

No. It's an inane platitude. No thought or reason behind it.
For example little kids get cancer.
What possible reason is there for that?

No, I don’t believe in fate. I hate it when people say to me because it makes me feel antagonistic on top of whatever shit thing has happened!

@AnneLovesGilbert My God people can be so stupid.
What an idiotic thing to say to someone with your history and struggles.

Nope. There’s too much cruelty and bad things that happen - what would the reason be?
My DH died suddenly at 51. What’s the reason behind that? My daughter was diagnosed with MS at 17. I can’t see any positives (which is what I think people mean by ‘a reason’, that’s there’s an upside to whatever it is that’s happened).
And it’s not at all comforting to hear either.

No of course not. It’s complete nonsense. It’s a vacuous saying said by silly people.

No. What’s the reason for loss of a child? Or children dying in war or disaster. The phrase is annoyingly glib.

It's a way of consoling someone when something happens outside of their control. I mean yes, there was a reason, probably to do with your employer wanting to keep their own pockets full. But that reason isn't valid as far as you're concerned so yeah, not especially helpful.

Reason for and for a reason are two very different things.

In that case 'for a reason' must be just woo woo nonsense then. It happened because her employer had a reason to want it to happen. Not because the stars or fate were somehow involved.

No I hate this phrase. Things just happen. Just because something else worked out better that didn’t mean the other thing did happen for a reason. It means we try to look for some positive in everything to help cope with life

I hate it too. It seems in general to be said by people who haven't experienced awful things in their life.

That is the fundamental difference. Happening for a reason is woo as you’re (not you personally) saying it was pre-ordained, pre-scripted as if it’s an already written life story, for you to then unknowingly play out. A reason for is cause and effect. I dropped the banana skin, slipped and broke my ankle. Cause + effect. There was no reason why the universe had to or needed to break my ankle, which would be ‘happening for a reason’.

Yeah, exactly the way I see it.

Sorry for your heartbreaking losses. I also had this said to me after failed IVF and a stillbirth. It's a smug, nasty thing to say. Like the person who is saying it is explaining away their own good fortune by making out there's some universal plan and mine and yours happened to be one of loss and heartache. It's also a misguided attempt to make you find meaning in what is actually random bad luck. I had a very bad spell of mental.health problems searching for meaning in my losses. I drove myself near to the edge thinking if I could learn the lesson all would be well, or if I'd learned the lesson I could have prevented the losses. It's dangerous stuff

No I don’t. I do believe in the saying “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade” though. As in look for the positives in things that are on the face of it negative. Particularly in relation to my infertility.

I believe it’s true but I wouldn’t say it to someone because it’s a cliché and annoying. It is super hard to know what to say to people going through a bad time though as people want different things. Some people want advice, others want to simply rant into the void, some want you to take their mind off it with humour, some want you to share a similar story so they don’t feel alone, others hate that because they think that’s you turning the attention back to yourself.

I would generally stick with a simple acknowledgement like “I hope things work out for you with work, it sounds like a worrying time.” But that’s also probably the wrong thing to say to some people.