Everything DOESN’T happen for a reason
I am SO over hearing that “everything happens for a reason.”
Things do NOT happen for a reason.
Things happen, and we try to make meaning out of them. But there is absolutely no empirical capital R-reason, and no cosmic plan behind the difficult things that happen to us.
When …
…my mother died of pancreatic cancer at 66?
…my friend Marybeth died at 53?
…a kid is born into poverty and has no access to clean water or food?
…a young man stayed at Pulse nightclub for last call instead of leaving 15 minutes earlier and was murdered by a man carrying two semi-automatic weapons?
…a young Black man went running in his neighborhood and was chased and gunned down by men in a truck?
…someone nearly missed a plane but got on just in time … only to have it tear into the World Trade Center 45 minutes later?
Or take some things that are a little less dramatic: how about when you lose a job; when a significant relationship ends?
And then, even slightly less dramatic than those: when your back goes out; you miss an important phone call; when you get in a fender-bender in your new car?
There are REASONS for these?
HELL NO.
When things like this happen that clearly suck (or even those things that are upsetting, or simply annoyances), and we tell ourselves that “it happened for a reason” it’s an attempt to shortcut the feelings of suckage.
It’s a variation on the theme of spiritual bypassing, magical thinking, and finger-in-the-ears going “lalalala; I don’t hear you!” – and there’s no true healing or understanding available there.
Because when hard things happen we need to feel hurt, angry, sad, devastated, incensed, helpless, overwhelmed, livid, hopeless – all the things – before we can make any sort of peace with them and come to some kind of understanding.
By trying to turn away from the hurt and anger by telling yourself that “it happened for a reason”, it takes you out of the true feelings and experience.
Did something horrible happen? Then feel awful. Something shitty happen? Then feel like shit. Let yourself rage, kvetch, and let it out. (May I suggest writing it out?)
And though there will never be a “reason” for what happened, if you let yourself go through the feelings, in time, you may be able to make your own meaning of it. Perhaps you’ll figure out how you grew, survived, or learned something new about yourself and the world.
And whatever you come to, it’ll be more organic, and bring longer-lasting understanding than the quick, unreal bandage of “everything happens for a reason.”
Because it just doesn’t.
