Think things do happen for a reason?

[CelestialHorse]

I do ponder this a lot and wonder, I know some people say yes, things happen for a reason and some people don't really believe it. I do want to know what you guys think? Anything happened for a reason for you guys? Sometimes I believe it, other times I WANT to believe it and other times I'm doubtful.

What's the reason that some of us don't have a job, or hard to find one? Will we find hte best job out there? Why haven't we found the person we're meant to be with? Will that person come and be the only one for us? etc.

Maybe this happened for a reason, until I did get SSI, but I remember getting a couple interviews at the new Regal Cinemas where I used to live, I did great but never got hired. So I never had a job after that since I was fighting for SSI, then I won it a YEAR later. I like to think, well maybe higher power knew I was going to get SSI and wanted to help me win it by me not having a job? Who knows.

Has anything ever happened to you guys like that? I did great on an interview at SPCA< but I didn't get hired. Maybe I will find something I will enjoy better?

 

[Richard]

Yes, I think that everything (both pleasant and unpleasant) that has impacted my life since birth has a reason. I am, to a large extent, the result of my experiences. Different experiences would have resulted in a different person.

In a nutshell, the reason for the experiences which I have had is to produce the person that I am today, and experiences yet to come will further define who I am. My life has been the usual mix of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, triumph and tragedy, and in my wiser moments I know that I would not have it any other way.

 

[Zephyros]

I don't know if things happen for a reason, but there is certainly a lesson to be learned from everything. I have noticed that when people say that things happen for a reason, they usually mean the bad things, and that they happened in a sort of romantic-comedy plot twist so that things will turn out for the best in the end. I don't believe this. Everything and everyone is connected, so we really can't always see the reason. If bad things happen, they could be to teach us to be less romantic about life and more realistic, my misfortune could be your gain since I am "used" as a bad example, an opportunity lost today could be to open our eyes to others tomorrow or any number of things. Many times we will never know the reason (I could be run over by a car and someone reading about it in the paper will be more careful in the future, my losing a job could be because it went to someone more "deserving").

It need not be only bad things either. At times in my life I have noticed patterns where one thing led to another until the seeming end result almost seemed "meant to be" with mathematical precision. Sometimes chance meetings affected my life deeply but only years later did I understand how to the fullest extent. From a practical point of view, there is often little we can seemingly gain from the reason or from these patterns, but God (whoever your God is, even if he is simple probability) does not play dice with the universe, and he is the one who sees the ultimate bigger picture, as in, a butterfly flaps its wings in the US and causes a rainstorm in Tokyo.

Sometimes the reason is obvious. One day I was supposed to eat lunch with my mother, aunt and baby cousin. The usually charming baby was especially fussy that day so on the walk to the restaurant we had to make several stops which delayed our arrival. Just as we were about to turn the corner to the place, we suddenly heard an explosion. The restaurant had been bombed by terrorists and if we had gone just a little faster, I wouldn't be here to write this today. I do believe in coincidence as well, however, so I don't really know what to make of that story. The bombing may have had no reason, but that fussy baby saved my life.

Some things... to say they happened for a reason though, could simply be cruel. These could be the Holocaust or 9/11 or Tsunamis. Try telling someone who's whole life has been washed away that it happened for a reason, and you will get your deserved slap in the face. These occurrences are why I am not (and for that matter, refuse to be) 100% sure in my faith, since they always prove me wrong. Looking for reasons for why things happen isn't and never can be as simple as "it will turn out for the best" because, again, we may never know and we cannot see all possibilities and all ends. It is very important to practice humility and realize how small we are, and how little we can see.

 

[Milfoil]

I agree with closrapexa, the reason is often a lesson if we are brave enough to accept it.

If a person is constantly asking "why me?" when will I get a job? When will I get a partner? When will I have a nice house? When will I have a car etc then the common denominator there is 'me/I' or the person themself. If things don't feel right then something has to change and that can only be ourself.

I don't believe that life punishes us but rather the fates will push us to change ourselves IF we dare to look honestly at who we are and face what we don't like by working to change it. It's not easy but it is worth it.

 

[Richard]

......I have noticed that when people say that things happen for a reason, they usually mean the bad things, and that they happened in a sort of romantic-comedy plot twist so that things will turn out for the best in the end.......

That is sort of a pathetic attitude. We are molded by happenings. It can be painful and destructive. Who knows if it turns out for the "best," whatever that means. It is reality. That's about the only value judgement we can place on it.

In Thus Spake Zarathustra, Z. dreamed of the (to him) most disgusting thing imaginable, the eternal recurrence of all things. The conceiver of the magnificent übermensch (not an anti-Semitic concept, by the way; Nietzsche's despised "blond beast" was an untermensch, subhuman, the opposite of the übermensch) had to accept that everything was doomed to repeat itself. That means that nothing can ever turn out for the best, no matter how we conceive of the "best." The only lesson learned was to embrace life regardless, and even the process of learning to embrace life was doomed to repeat.

Sometimes seemingly magnificent things can turn out to be disastrous. One of the happiest days of my life was when I received the Ph.D. degree. I was on top of the world. Subsequent events proved that this was a mixed blessing at best, and the resulting stress of being catapulted into the faculty of two of the most prestigious universities in the US was almost disastrous. It's not very Hollywood, but seemingly wonderful happenings can have the makings of a Greek tragedy.

 

[Zephyros]

I think, if you quoted a philosopher, I can quote one too, one I admire for his depth and understanding, who had a firm grip on the fact that life could be summed up as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo



But seriously, I like to use the Monkey's Paw as an example when things happen as we would wish them to but then the "fates" seemingly turn the tables on us, for better or worse. Could it be that to be enlightened is to purge yourself both of hope and despair and accept whatever happens as though it happened to someone else? Leaving aside the lessons learned point, which is valid when speaking of the mundane but falls apart in the face of the sort of disasters I mentioned (what can you really learn from a tsunami?) merely saying that things happen for a reason seems, in this context, as you said, pathetic. Now, being pathetic isn't always bad, and kicking people holding on to hope when all else fails is cruel. However, I must ask again (and I apologize for being so morbid) "what's the point?"

 

[Richard]

......But seriously, I like to use the Monkey's Paw as an example when things happen as we would wish them to but then the "fates" seemingly turn the tables on us, for better or worse. Could it be that to be enlightened is to purge yourself both of hope and despair and accept whatever happens as though it happened to someone else? Leaving aside the lessons learned point, which is valid when speaking of the mundane but falls apart in the face of the sort of disasters I mentioned (what can you really learn from a tsunami?) merely saying that things happen for a reason seems, in this context, as you said, pathetic. Now, being pathetic isn't always bad, and kicking people holding on to hope when all else fails is cruel. However, I must ask again (and I apologize for being so morbid) "what's the point?"

I don't hold to Zarathustra's dream as being the ultimate reality. It is, after all, a work of poetic fiction. I only mentioned it in connection with the OP. If things happen for a reason, I don't necessarily connect that with some supernatural purpose, only that my identity has been formed by the events in my life. I am very sorry if I come across as kicking people in the butt who are looking for hope. Perhaps to them I should say, "Seek, and ye shall find."

Disasters and atrocities can be meaningful, but certainly not to the victims. They are evidence of a very imperfect world. Perhaps the Creator God was not the perfect entity s/he was conceived to be by the authors of the Torah.

 

[toj]

Does everything happen for a reason? Good question, but one that can never really be definitively answered to anyone's satisfaction and one that will vary for everyone out there. Things have happened to me in my early life which to this day effect every moment of my current life - and not in always in a positive way. I know what should have been done through the years but I can't go back and change things now. Things are what they are now and everything leading up to now is the culmination of those experiences. The karma, fates, cosmic laws, bad luck, good luck, coincidences, seemingly synchronistic occurrences going on everyday which we are either a participant or observer of - they just are. I have found it is easier for me to adopt a "be here now" philosophy because our past does have bearing on our present and future and while we can't always even control the now - but we can experience it.

 

[tarotbear]

Do things happen for a reason? Probably. Do things always happen for a good reason? No.

"Since this is the only possible world, it is the best of all possible worlds, and everything that happens in it is the best of all possible things." Voltaire sarcastically wrote that in 'Candide.'

Senseless acts like the destruction of the World Trade Center had a reason. Many people died in that tragedy for a reason. But the buildings were nowhere as full of people as they could have been for a reason. My cousin who's office was on the ninth floor survived 9/11 for a reason.

We just always know that there is a reason, even if we don't understand or comprehend it at the time.

 

[Zephyros]

LRichard, of course I wasn't accusing you of anything; I really was speaking in general terms about hope being a driving factor in finding reasons for why things happen, be they good or bad. Now, just to clarify, I am not making light of 9/11 or the people who survived or what have you. However, I sometimes feel that in trying to find reasons, even if all we can do in the end is to say that we learned from it, is because we have the luxury of doing so.

Now, as you said, this is an imperfect world, but in Africa and many, many other places in the world people are constantly dying of starvation, every moment we write here. In light of this, I feel this supports the notion of the complete randomness of the world rather than the deterministic "reason" view. So one might say they lost a job so they could learn a lesson or I didn't die in a bombing because I had a mission to fulfill or what have you, but surely those are as nothing compared to the calamities people suffer from every day. I am not trying to be argumentative, but this is the main and biggest problem I have with any sort of faith and religion in general, no matter what its name is, and I constantly walk a tightrope on this. I mean, I am clothed, fed and healthy because I live in the West, while billions of people aren't as fortunate.

In essence, saying there is a reason for everything might just be actually saying "there is a God..." While I wouldn't presume to know the secrets of the universe, the next logical sentence must be "... and he favors whites." Again, I'm speaking in general terms, but isn't chalking suffering up to an imperfect world akin to saying "mysterious are the ways of the Lord?"