Everything Happens For a Reason

"Everything happens for a reason" is one of those phrases you hear a lot, and it seems to be a means of finding comfort. In that way it's a lot like the concept of a god. In fact, if you believe that saying, you must believe that there is a conscious force behind everyday occurences.

Let's imagine a hypothetical scenario where you step on a rusty nail, and it makes a hole right through your foot. Now you have a nail stuck in your foot. Removing it yourself is generally a bad idea as you tend to bleed faster when you remove the puncturing implement. You know you're gonna have to get a tetanus shot. This is an unpleasant situation.

But everything happens for a reason right? Maybe you end up meeting your future spouse at the hospital. Maybe you end up missing a really lame social event because of the injury and are happy for that at least. Maybe you're just a horrible person and the reason is that you deserved it.

But all of those possibilities assume there's a "greater power" at work planning this crap out. Lacking any evidence of a god, it makes no sense to say that everything happens for a reason. Even if you did meet your spouse because you stepped on the rusty nail... there was no reason behind it. It's called a "coincidence".

"I forgot my cellphone at home, two of my tires blew out, and I had no way of calling for road side assistance. It was really a big problem to get someone to stop and lend me their cellphone. But I guess everything happens for a reason right?"

No.

Of course, you can say that some things happen for a reason. But those things are the events that occur as a result of the actions of a thinking being.

"I can't walk right now because a thug shot me in the left leg."

Yup... it happened for a reason. That thug consciously pulled the trigger and shot you. And their reason might have been that they wanted to hobble you, kill you, or maybe they hit you by "coincidence" and they were just pulling the trigger because they wanted to. That's the reason. It might be a stupid reason. It might not have any greater purpose.

To then assign it any greater purpose is solely a construct of the mind. You can decide it has meaning, but that doesn't mean it actually does. "God let me get shot so I'd understand pain and the struggle to get back up on my feet," doesn't work. You can decide how to deal with the situation, and you may come out stronger. That's your choice. Not the plan of some manipulative being.

That's it. That's my rant for now. I suppose I should just stop trying to tear away comforts... people deserve to delude themselves a little now and then right? I guess. I choose otherwise.