So, do things really happen 'for a reason'?

[frecklyspeckly]

We've had a very eventful year without going into detail. Nothing life or death but some rather unsettling bad luck, major changes etc. People keep telling me things 'happen for a reason'. I am open minded to an extent but I cannot find I can identify with this. even very rational people have come out with this. What do you think (and can we leave sensless murders/attacks etc out of it please?)

I believe things happen for a reason to a certain point, at the end of the day a lot of what happens is directly down to us and the choices we make. I feel the same as you do on one hand we have had bad luck through our own indecision etc and on the other I lost my grandmother last night without getting to say goodbye so its swings and roundabouts - who really knows x

Most bad (and good) things in life can be traced back in some way to a decision or action we took in the past.

Mostly though, it is about probabilites rather than certainties. For example, someone who does a risky sporting activity like heli skiing and dies in an avalanche does in a sense was the cause of their own death. The decision to do heli skiing though was not certain to cause their death.

About ten years ago my DW nearly died and then a series of other awful events took place that frankly made us question what we had done to deserve or cause those things.

In fact we had done nothing. It was pure bad luck that caused the illness and pure good luck it was spotted in time. The other things that happened were caused by decisions of others we had no control of. It took us a long time to recover nevertheless.

The human brain is programmmed to look for patterns, meaning and logical causes. It is natural to think things 'happen for a reason' as it is programmed into our psyche.

I think that absolutely, shit happens, and doesn't need a reason for doing so.

Everything is a learning experience though, and adds to who we are.

A while ago dh and I were sorting through our financial affairs and thought we'd made a massive mistake, the consequence of which would be losing everything, and I do mean everything.

I hugged dh and said, well you know if I have to, I could start working back at my old job, I could even do nights while we find you a job in the day and work around looking after dd. I could take on cleaning work or something at the weekends too to get some extra cash. If we have to live hand to mouth, well a hell of a lot of people do that, and we've done it before, we'll do it again. And I felt okay with that.

The next day we got a phone call from dh's brother, he had checked it all out for us with the relevant people and we hadn't made any terrbile errors after all, so everything is fine.

A part of me is convinced if I had gone nutty and gone on about not wanting to give up holidays or having a car or going nuts at the Next sale, then that phonecall wouldn't have come until I realised that money doesn't define who we are. And that I am prepared to drop my grand ideas of being a complementary therapist and go and clean loos if I have to, to feed us all.

Well I would make feck all money as a lapdancer.

Not sure about bad things happening for an unknown reason.

Bad things happen for obvious reasons - for example, if someone drinks too much, gets behind the wheel, and kills an innocent child, the reason is patently obvious!

A slightly more comforting side to this is that when bad things happen, how do we react. Do we react to make something good happen? For example, if there is a catastrophic earthquake, do we react positively and strengthen communities and relationships?

If you go for a job you want and don't get it, perhaps God has other plans for you. It was the wrong job and a better one is round the corner. I can testify to this.