Nothing happens for no reason.

Have you ever thought to yourself, "Gosh, why did that happen?" I know I have many times. I've probably had more disappointment in life than I have had victory and we all have.

Have you ever thought to yourself, "How did I get myself into this mess?" Again, I know I have been there many times. I've also, been the person to listen to others say the same and chuckle and easily say, "That happens." (laughs) You know you've done it and so have I and it's so easy when it's not happening to you to just brush it off...but, it's not as easy to get angry when someone does the same to you.

We've all heard the saying, "Life is not fair." It's not, Why is it that I get to live in America on the 4th of July, Drink cokes, eat BBQ, live freely and be overweight when I know that there is someone in the world less fortunate than me. A half starving child on the streets of Sudan is running for his life, hiding wherever he can, sometimes stealing food just to survive, his mom and pop died of HIV/AIDS or were killed right in front of him, foreseeing gruesome things happen that WE in America couldn't stomach if we saw it and that's just one story that I've heard. Life's not fair.

Why do good things happen to the innocent? Why do bad things happen to good people? Life happens. Is the living FORCE cruel? Unjust? (Fill in the blanks). Life happens. Do you have all the answers to what I am saying? Probably not and if you do I would find that rude and arrogant of you to say.

What about my wife? She has had Cerebral Palsy since she was born because a nurse was too rough with her when she was born and caused brain damage. Is that sad? Sure. Does it impact my wife to this day? Yes. How about that Nurse? Probably not. Does that Nurse deserve to have her RN license revoke? Sure, should that hospital be sued for damages to my wife and malpractice sure. but, life's not fair.

By this point I am sure that some may be thinking, "This is really offensive." Or, thinking I am being insensitive to human suffering but, I am not. I am not saying to suck it up and accept it but, that there is a peace knowing that it happened for a reason.

One thing I can be sure about is that I don't always and neither does anyone know why these things happen. Sometimes situations in life are an anomaly. I once heard of a man 6'4" tall drowning in a four foot tall body of water in Louisiana. Life's not fair. The harder thing is what do you tell his parents? The father went to his son's grave site everyday for two years and wept bitterly for the loss of his son.

Now, my Uncle once worked at a convenient store I believe a Texaco in the mid 80's and he was a great big dude 6'4" 300 lbs, looked like a young hulk hogan with a full head of hair (laughs) He had just clocked off his shift and his relief came in. It wasn't no more than five minutes later. A man came in robbed the Texaco and shot and killed my Uncle's Associate. Things happen for a reason.

Now, is it mere luck that my Uncle just missed a dance with the devil sort of speak? Sure you could say that but, I am with Obi Wan and I don't believe in luck. I believe it was the will of The Force that my Uncle kept living on. My Uncle met his soon to be wife the next day when he quit that job fearing that might happen again. Trust me had a gun pointed at my head before working retail it's not a sobering moment I don't care how tough you are. He met her on the way out of the Texaco she was a girlfriend of the victim and wanted to know what exactly had happened. My Uncle told her what he knew and she wept and he took her to dinner that night and they have been together ever since. Things happen for a reason.

My point of thought for writing this long note to you all was not to be negative or tell you, " S**T happens." But, was to encourage you.

I know, there is a Jedi here that is going through something in their lives today. My encouragement for you is to hold on that storm will end soon enough. There is peace midst the storm. If you will seek that peace in the storm you will come out of it stronger than you we're before. Storms happen, life happens, But even Storms have a cease in our lives. Hold on your breakthrough is coming.

This was a great topic. I've made no secrets of the fact I grew up in foster care. My mom always said the same thing, that things happen for a reason. For all intents and purposes, I was very severely physically abused. While it seems like a terrible thing, I think it happened when I was young enough that the mental scars aren't there. Looking back, it also seems like it protected me from a much more damaging life. Instead of living the life I could have, I lived one where I had numerous breaks, got a good middle class life, a college education, a good wife, etc. The alternative it seems would have been a life of drugs, alcohol, and prison just looking at my one sibling.

Another area which I have touched on here and there was a three year long search for my birth father. It began with an accidental discovery I made when taking a DNA test to help someone prove a rumor. Everything that could possibly go right on it went right. I had a strong genetic line going to the 1600s, the line was well documented ending with one of my ancestors in WV. I just happened to get the perfect match to someone who actually grew up next to my family. It was just the perfect textbook search. I always said I was lucky. My aunt says I'm blessed. But I really believe something was guiding it. Some thing it was my two fathers. That may be. But I think it also came about because I was open and ready to receive them into my life and my heart.

But I agree with you, things happen for a reason, there are reasons things tend to go in my favor at times, and there are reasons that things tend to go bad. When I look back at the bad things, there are always lessons I can learn from them or it's to have avoided worse problems later on. I once interviewed for a dream job. I didn't get it and was bummed. Many years later, it was in the news. Enron. My wife and I try to remember things like this when we're traveling. If we get started later then we planned, or stopped in traffic, we just figure it might be because we were being protected from something later on, like perhaps a car wreck.

I definitely think that things happen for a reason. It's the things like that which we have no control over. My best example would be a personal one. For the past month, I have been seeing a chiropractor for my back cause it was so bad. My current job gives me full benefits which is great because I get the health insurance I need but I'm not happy there (5 1/2 years too long in one retail store). About a week before I was about to put in my two weeks at my current job, I started getting this back pain. I ignored it and went about working and was ready to put in my two weeks noticed since I was about to accept a job with a company that gave no benefits. I didn't care, I was so elated to leave my current job that I didn't give two hoots about it. Well, I decided on my next day off to go to the doctor and he said that I needed to see a chiropractor. Long story short, I decided to stay where I am because I have the benefits I need to see a doctor. If I had put in my two weeks and left, I would not be able to because I had no insurance (and out of pocket was $124 PER VISIT!!!!!).

As much as I want to leave where I am, I can not. I stayed. It was meant to happen that I got this damn backache and had to stay. As I type this, I think "hmm, maybe something bad will happen to that other company in the future?". It's the little things like that which make you really think about life. Things do happen for a reason whether we like it or not. I do think, however, that we have the power to change it.........but with that, may come consequences.

I think the phrase "everything happens for a reason" can be rather cold. Because think of what DOES happen... murder, rape, genocide, plagues, etc etc. Compassion should lead us to feel this stuff is deeply unjust... right? I can't look my friend the rape victim in the eye and tell her "well, it had to happen".

It can be really rough... some people are unfortunate enough to be born into poverty and disease and die within a few short days before ever having a chance to do anything about anything. Can there be a reason for the deaths of newborn babies?

Putting the emotive stuff aside though, because it clouds our feelings and doesn't let us think clearly... everything I have seen and heard, felt and understood has led me to believe there is a single consistent theme to reality: balance.

To us on the ground that may look like good luck, bad luck, or rather justice and injustice and every chaotic combination of these things imaginable. Something being good for the universe doesn't mean it's always going to be good for us personally. Climate change appears to be a great macro example of this.

I believe the paths we walk as humans do have that same purpose of balance, even if it feels cruel, even if it leaves some as rapists and some as rape victims, some babies dead and some as murderers. I don't understand it, can't excuse it, don't feel it "fair". But I know it to be necessary. Because what is, is. What happened, happened. And I can't believe for a second that the only thing in the universe which bucks this universal tendency for balance is human life. For all the bad in humans, there is so much good. So much love and hope and humour. And for me, it's clear there is balance at play in our own paths, as well.

All I have learned has taught me to believe balance is the natural state of things, so to trust in the Force, in our own individual path within it, to master that which can be mastered and accept that which cannot. Some lives are happier than others, that's a simple fact. But one doesn't get to choose their life, only to make the best of what's already laid out.

My personal feeling is that nothing happens for a reason (not some overarching cosmic reason anyway) but that every cloud really does have - or has the potential to have - a silver lining, understandably difficult as that can sometimes be to see and accept.

There's something we can learn from absolutely everything and there's always some good we can take away or create, should we be of a mindset that allows us to choose to do so.

Many of the most heartwarming, life-affirming things that we see in life arise out of the most tragic circumstances.

Things happen

They do, they happen because the long reaching spidery web of cause and effect happened. But do they happen for a 'reason', I don't really think so. The phrase 'happens for a reason' implies some cosmic (to borrow V's wording) interference and I'm not in the habit of assigning blame to the universe.

I put "everything happens for a reason" firmly in the realm of "I pretend to believe" - this is concept I took form Frances Hodgeson Burnett's "A Little Princess":

Ermengarde looked from her to the doll and back again.
"Can she - walk?" She asked breathlessly.
"Yes, " answered Sara. "At least I believe she can, At least I PRETEND to believe she can. And that makes it seem as if it were true."

Sara pretended to be believe her doll could come alive behind closed doors because believing so was a joy and comfort to her. Even if she knew that it was not truly possible. It's the willing suspension of disbelief - poetic faith.

Glass shatters in seemingly random patterns when it is hit. Is this the truth though? Working with my friends father in his window/glass shop, i learned this. Glass as we know is in incredibly slow moving liquid, the cracks and shatters appear where the glass is the thinnest though the appearance to us is even. Do all things happen for a reason? Well that's a matter for debate. One experience I will share is this around 2 years ago while moving to back to Chicago, IL. I hit an ice patch in my Durango, I went head on into a bridge pylon at 65mph. The car folded around me, the steering wheel ended up about 3 inches from my chest the, parking brake pedal which sat at about shin height was pushed up the left side of my leg to the, height of my mid thigh, I had misc stuff in the back as it was a moving trip. A heavy piece steel rod of my old bed frame exited the vehicle through the center of my windshield roughly 12" from my head. After a moment of shock I began checking myself for injuries. Once I was able to free myself from the car, had to kick out the drivers side door as it was jammed shut. I found I was uninjured with the exceptions of the expected bumps and bruises and a gnarly little cut from where my sun glasses jammed above my eyes. When I saw that my spare tire had ripped off and rolled into middle of the highway where the ice patch I had hit, I instantly kicked into "Oh crap someone is gonna hit that and slide out" I sprinted out to the middle of the highway after checking if it was clear. grabbed the tire and flung it into the middle of the median. Shortly after, another car with a young woman went off the road a little ahead of me, I ran up instantly to check if she was okay. She was thankfully. The police arrived shortly after, the police officer was the one who noticed I was bleeding from my face above my eyes (sunglasses). His first question was if I wanted an ambulance to treat me, my response was to tell him to check on the woman first and ensure she had the ability to have her car pulled out and returned to the road. When he returned to me he said that he had gotten a report from a trucker who said he saw a man sprint on to the highway and throw a tire off the road. That made me feel good, even though he lectured me on how dumb it was and then thanked me for the effort as it had most likely cause less accidents. Did it happen for a reason? Was it luck? Point is I don't think we are supposed to know, it sits as another one of those where we should look at it as grateful for every moment. The future is not set, but we should be aware it will come good or bad pondering why may very well guide it.

I enjoy this sort of topic...everything happens for a reason...

I for one feel that everything DOES in fact happen for a reason...or more appropriately, for reasons.

Also, in the previously stated sense, perhaps not for "cosmic" reasons...but reasons nonetheless.

Those reasons are the simple culmination of all prior decisions up until that moment in which said "thing" actually "happened". Life is an interconnected flow of eternal moments, and our choices in each moment influence the ensuing choices available to us in future moments. Get into the spidery-web sense of how all MY decisions in each prior moment of MY life start intertwining with the decisions of others I interact with, directly or not, and we have an extremely complicated web of these "moments" which lead to such "things" that are specifically "happening" for the exact "reasons" portrayed by all prior decisions in every prior moment throughout time.

For instance, I was born in Texas, greatest nation on earth, to a lower-middle-income-ish family. The reason I was born in those conditions has zero to do with luck or anything of the sort, but more to do with the fact that my father was born in Texas, and his father before him, and his before him...and that my grandfather worked in the oilfields of Algeria, making the nearest/best-available english speaking university for my father to attend being one in Switzerland, where he happened to meet my mother, who was in school in Switzerland because of her interest in art and the Germanic languages, and she was interested in such things because her father was German and he was very artistic...but he was born in Chicago, to immigrants of the late 19th century...etc., etc., and so on and so forth...

Trace my "birth in Texas" as the incident back far enough and there are TONS of decisions in various moments which could have dramatically changed the conditions under which I was born and raised, or whether at all, and to which parents, in what country...had nothing to do with me being LUCKY...but everything to do with a culmination of decisions in innumerable moments by countless people I consider ancestors, and likely even tons more to do with indirect influences of employers, educators, landlords, and family, friends, neighbors, of every one before me who influenced my direct family line in such a way to lead to the appropriate combination of decisions which preceded my birth in Texas.

I have done things and had things done to me that were not all pleasant or ideal. To me, however, they are simply effects in the moment of all those influencing reasons, MOST of which I had little control over. What I CAN control, however, is how I act in this moment, and how those experiences influence MY decisions...hopefully appropriately...so it will set me up for better moments to come.

At the same time, however, I have NO idea how a good or bad decision right now, today, will influence other opportunities or experiences in the future. What I do understand, however, is that if I move in the right direction, make my decisions and live in the moment as the best I feel possible, then I am far more likely to have positive influences on future moments, and the reverse is true if I make poor decisions right now, in this moment, I can thusly expect to experience more negative incidents in future moments.

Either way, I don't wallow in the past or dream too heavily upon the future. Everything that has happened to me has happened for the specific reasons allowed by all my prior decisions, and everything that has yet to happen to me will for those compounded reasons of the moments existing now.

I don't think everything happens for a reason. A lot of my life has been miserable. I can point out a few things that have had massive impacts on my life and have changed who I am, most of them negative.

I'd rather say "you can learn something from everything" and "No learning goes to waste". I was abused by my own mother until I was 30. From that I have an increased anxiety, depression, and many other problems. I'm using that experience to have compassion for other people. I've been working with all those problems for the last eight years, and in turn, working to help support and teach others. It was my mother's choice to abuse me, it was her choice not to grow out of the person her life made her. It was my choice to stop that cycle and fight with everything I have against my own thought processes and emotional responses to become a better more stable person. And I decided to turn this experience into something positive by writing sermons and teachings. That was MY choice, not my destiny, not some Gods' will, not the Force. I refuse to believe that any of the spirits I work with and trust would do something so harmful to me.

I've had too much happen to me and my life to fall back on "it's for a reason" anymore. For me, it was a slim support. It allowed me to let go of my power and let things happen, instead of reassessing my goals and changing my plans.

I believe in spiritual influence, I believe that they can poke you in the right direction, but I do not believe they have almighty power over my life. I don't believe in fate. I DO believe we all have a purpose, but it's up to us to find and use it.