Everything Happens for a Reason?
“Everything happens for a reason.”
I hear it all the time whenever someone talks about things that have happened to them in the past. Why do so many people believe that to be true? The idea that events are culminating into some grand plan which will eventually put the individual in some sort of more evolved state or “right” position is part narcissism, part blind faith and 100% bullshit. In reality there is no “reason” for any of the disparate events that befall us. There are any number of realities that could have culminated based on actions that we take throughout every second of life. There is one reality that we perceive and it did not come into being because of a reason but rather because we took a specific set of actions that led us to our “current state”. People attach a significance to an event after the fact in order to help make sense of their reality and achieve a more ordered state to their perception of the world around them. It may help people process their current reality and help them feel better about it but it is logically false.
This notion is relied heavily upon by many religions in order to explain why “bad” things happen to “good” people but even the non-religious buy-in to this idea to help take the sting out of negative events that may befall them. “It is God’s plan” is frequently heard when someone dies tragically. This response is simply an antidote for the simple minded to counteract the poison that a randomly ordered world can inject. Bad things happen because bad things happen. There is no reason other than the reason we come up with in retrospect to justify the things that happen in the reality that occurs. After a long enough time line a person can play “connect-the-dots” with any event and eventually come to the conclusion that even the most terrible events “should” have happened.
If reality is a randomly ordered series of events then what is the point of doing anything? That is difficult to answer and is a very personal question. However, the first step to answer it is to do away with the assertion that there is some sort of grand plan that we are subject to retroactively. Horrible things will happen and wonderful things will happen – some horrible things may start a series of events that lead to wonderful things or vice-versa. Once one strips away the “Everything happens for a reason”-factor then one is left with a clearer perception of “truth” in their existence and can take a clearer view of their reality without needing to attach some arbitrary reason to it.
Narcissism is an aspect of this viewpoint because the individual boils down the activity of the world around them to be a series of events that result in a current reality for them. We are a insignificant part of the world and to think that the events of life are somehow focused on us is delusional. The world can be a scary place and people have little to no control over the events that occur. It is in one’s best interests to not attach a significance to random events. Instead one should process the activity around them as it occurs and not attribute the way things happen to some grand plan or fate.
The final component to this viewpoint on life is a faith that there is some benevolence out there that has a plan in mind for each of our lives or has an artificial reason for our existence. We are thinking, feeling beings perceiving the world around us within finite bodies. The infinite portion of ourselves (our thoughts and mind) is constantly at odds with the finite portion of ourselves (our bodies). It is from the interaction of these two parts of ourselves that we have developed faith to help reconcile the two competing parts of ourselves. The infinite portion of ourselves battles for reason and invulnerability while the finite portion of ourselves decays and betrays the idea that a plan is in effect to defeat any obstacles in our path. If there is a “reason” that things happen to us it feeds the notion that we can overcome the things that may block our path in life because there is something greater than ourselves at stake. As discouraging as it can be this is untrue. We exist in an uncertain world and when we attribute our reality with the actions that we take rather than fate we step closer to “reality”.
Where is the sense of responsibility to push oneself, to strive, if everything is part of a bigger ‘plan,’ if we’re all puppets with a predestined fate? Who’s accountable for life’s successes and failures, if not yourself?
John Wooden said it more eloquently than I can. “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
Besides, the idea of coincidence is so much more fun anyhow.