I'm sure you're all familiar with the saying "everything happens for a reason." But is that even true? And if not, why do we say it? Is it because, perhaps, it brings comfort to those moments when everything in life seems out of control? Or maybe people say it to each other because they don't know what else to say. Silence is more uncomfortable than feeling out of control, I think.
As humans, I think it's in our nature to try to justify and understand life. Bad, difficult, or unpleasant things happen, and instead of merely accepting it, we want to explain that it's someone's plan for us, or that there is some cosmic force that made it happen.
The idea of that offends me. Things happen because we make choices, and choices have consequences. I didn't meet Pepper because it happened for a reason; I met him because my family threw me a dinner, and I graciously (and grudgingly) attended. I didn't meet Old Man and Teach by chance; I met them because they were friends with TxB. I didn't end up in in the same line of business at my BigAssCompany for the last nine years for the hell of it; I stayed there because I believe in it. There's nothing in my life that just happened for a reason. It happened because I let it, or, because someone else did.
Stuff, bad stuff, good stuff, neutral stuff - it all happens to everyone. Some people let it make or break them, and others roll with the punches. I try to roll with it. Nothing really makes me more anxious than feeling out of control or like I don't have the ability to change things immediately in my life. Situations like that become opportunities to accept that sometimes other people in my life hold all the power in their hands, and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. Fighting it is a futile effort that, at least for me, just makes me more anxious and nervous. Instead, accepting it, really truly accepting something I didn't choose, brings me peace.
I have some things going on right now, things I didn't pick, things I can't control, and things I'm not particularly happy about - after one night of sleeplessness, I decided it's not worth arguing about. Things will be what they are, but there isn't any natural order of things causing it. It's life. It's someone else's choice, and the decision made that impacts me is directly related to the perception of who I am and what I can do. If it works out for me, it's not because this happened for a reason; instead, it's because I took it in stride and did the best I can do. And if it doesn't work out for me, and I move on to something else in my life, it's not because this happened for a reason; instead, it's because I took it in stride, and did the best I can do.
And then I made a different choice.
I realize I'm being intentionally vague right now, and for that I apologize. I'm not able to relay any details until later this week, but even if I could, it doesn't really matter. The details of this post are inconsequential, and that's almost the point of this. This thing, just as any other thing, will work out the way it does because I will make it so, not because there's a reason.
My friends, I know, that seems too simple, and perhaps it's even offensive. Are you sitting there asking yourself if I'm saying the untimely departure of someone is because you made it so? Or that the destruction from natural disasters is because someone made it so? Of course not. Instead, I'm suggesting that perhaps there are things that happen in life just because they do. There is no reason for them. There is no divine purpose or grand scheme. They just happen.
It's what you do with those things that just happen, that are out of your control, that change your life. There doesn't have to be an underlying reason or rhyme for it. It didn't happen so you could learn something new. It happened.
If you learn from it, if you grow from it, if you make a new choice - good for you. That's self awareness, self preservation, and self respect. It's mature and grown up. And it's hard.
I know sometimes it feels a lot more comfortable to assume something happened to you because there is a reason for it, and I won't really try to convince you if that's what you believe. If you tell me, however, that something happened to me for a reason, and I raise my eyebrows at you, please understand that I just don't see it that way.
It works out because I make it so. And so do you.
