Does Everything Happen for a Reason?
Does everything actually happen for a reason in life?
This debate has been going on probably since the beginning of time. I can imagine 2 caveman sending back-and-forth clubbing each other as one says “yes everything happens for a reason!“, while the other one says, “no everything doesn’t have to have a reason to happen somethings are just coming out of thin air.“
So who is correct?
Is it the “believer“, that everything happens for a reason, who is correct in this discussion and correct in this approach to living?
Or is it the “nonbeliever“, that says things can happen for no reason whatsoever, there’s no divine plan it’s just a spin of the wheel to see which hand you’re given in life.
And which do you believe? Do you believe everything happens for a reason? Or do you think somethings just pop from out of nowhere for no reason at all?
Let’s take a little deeper look.
Everything in life happens for a reason! Now, the reason may not be seen for two weeks or six months or 20 years or 50 years… But on the side of the equation everything in life happens for a reason!
The divorce? To open the door way to learn the art of forgiveness could be one of the reasons. Another reason could be that it was going south, and it was only going to get worse so you were smart enough to get out before The train wreck, the real train wreck occurred.
So in this case, a divorce could happen for a very good reason! A divorce could free both people to find partners that were more compatible, a divorce could allow people to learn as I mentioned above the art of forgiveness that so many of us need to learn, the divorce could happen for us to learn how to be vulnerable, not to gossip, about our former partner.
A divorce can actually be a new lease on life!
What about addictions? Do they happen for a specific reason? Since we’re in this category the answer is absolutely yes.
Addictions serve an incredible purpose in life, to awaken us that something is wrong within! To awaken us that our life is being controlled by substances or behaviors or practices that will become addictions in our own existence.
I know in my personal life, I was an addict starting at age 12 for 30 years, alcohol and cocaine were my go to drugs. And it was divinely given!
Now some people might think that I’m crazy saying that my addictions were divinely given, they were a crucially important part of my life, everything happens for a reason and the reason that I went through these addictions was so that I could come out the other side a powerfully sober, fully recovered human being that helps thousands of other people get sober every year!
So absolutely, in this case, my addictions happened for a reason. To wake me up, to make me vulnerable, to make me reach for help, to increase my integrity by being honest with everyone around me… And then the big one… understanding what it’s like being under the throes of addiction and then understanding what it’s like to be free in recovery, are great reasons for my addiction in the past.
Now let’s look at the other side of the equation.
Everything does not happens for a specific reason!
With this philosophy, life is a crapshoot. Good things happen, bad things happen but there’s no real reason behind any of them happening.
Let’s take a look at divorce. Two people get tired of each other, and instead of doing the work with a counselor or therapist to figure out how to save the marriage, they just decide to divorce.
No really good reason, other than boredom or they want something more exciting I guess you could say those are reasons, but nothing really big or horrendous and so they both go through life saying wow we married for whatever reason we’re divorcing for whatever reason let’s just move on in life.
In this case, the belief of these two people would be there’s really no reason that we divorced other than were bored, we didn’t feel like doing the work, and we’re just going to go or merry ways.
And what about addictions? For those who don’t believe that addictions happen for any good reason we could say, I was unlucky and got into a family where my genetics caused my addiction, I have no control over it, it’s a disease, and I’m stuck with it. There’s no real reason for being addicted other than I got a bad hand from God in the genetic department when I was born.
Now if we take this a little deeper we could look at that quote, anonymously given years ago, “everything happens for a reason, and sometimes the reason is that we’re just stupid and don’t want to learn from the past.“
But then there’s still a reason right? The reason is is that were stupidly making the same mistakes over and over and over again so the reason that is that it’s us!
But of course we don’t want to look at it as “us“, when it comes to addiction, we want to try to find some kind of excuse like genetics or it’s a disease it’s out of our control.
Now some people may look at those as reasons that we’re addicted, I personally do not.
This one falls more underneath the “crapshoot of life“, that we just got bad genes. End of story.
So what is a summary of these two opposing views?
Number One. If you believe everything happens for a reason, you can find a reason at some point in life down the road. It may be a while, but most experiences do happen for a specific reason to wake us up, to have us change our ways, maybe it took three days in jail after a DUI to wake us up to get sober. But there are reasons for everything.
Number Two. Things that happen in life can be incredibly random, with no reason or meaning at all. I understand why people would gravitate towards this one as well. It means that certain things are out of our control. It means that no matter what we do, X is going to happen so why worry about it.
Where do you stand? That’s the most important question to answer right now.
If everything happens for a reason, then we can be a little bit more relaxed, when things that we term bad happen to us, and understand it is life and we will find out down the road why it happened.
If everything is random, and things that happen have no reason behind them at all, then maybe if you like this philosophy you can relax and say life is out of my control and I’m just gonna flow with it.
So where do you stand?
If you need help with these life decisions or other philosophical arenas that you’re going through and not quite understanding what to do, reach out to me and let’s chat at David Essel, M.S., O.M., Executive Coach, Counselor
“David Essel‘s work is highly endorsed by individuals like the late Wayne Dyer, and celebrity Jenny McCarthy says, “David Essel is the new leader of the positive thinking movement.“
His work as a counselor and minister has been verified, by so many organizations like Psychology Today, Therapy Tribe, Theravive, and marriage.com have verified David is one of the top counselors and relationship experts in the world.
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