Not Everything Happens for a Reason, but That's Okay

There have been numerous accounts of tragedy and heartbreak that I have experienced throughout my 22 years on Earth, all of which I remember so vividly it is almost as if they occurred just last night. What I remember even more vividly, however, is confiding in a person close to me who, after expressing sorrow and concern, proceeded to say to me that this had to have happened for some reason greater than the human mind can even begin to comprehend. While these words were intended in the most consoling way possible, in order to aid me in accepting what had happened to me, I was repulsed at this reaction each and every time. In a world where tragic events occur with no explanation whatsoever and we are left wondering what we did to deserve this and why this had to happen, it has become human nature to adapt the ideology that everything happens for a reason beyond our capability of understanding so that it is easier to accept them and move on with our lives. Realistically, however, everything does not happen for a reason, and living by the idea that it does is not as effective as one may think.

To say that an event happened for a reason is to say that it was meant to happen. What message are we sending when we look at someone who was raped, someone who was diagnosed with cancer, someone who lost their child in a car accident, and tell them that was supposed to happen to them? We are saying that it was their destiny for this to happen to them, that somewhere, somehow, there is a plan written out for them, and that is what the universe, or perhaps a higher power, decided they were worthy of. We then proceed to say that the good things that happen to us emerge from the bad things that happen: that your boyfriend cheated on you and broke your heart because you were meant to be with someone else, or that you got laid off from your job because you were destined to have a different job, but we merely say that to soften the blow. If certain things were destined, don’t you think there would be much simpler paths to get there? Your boyfriend didn’t cheat on you because you're meant to be with someone else—your boyfriend cheated on you because he sucks. Is there a chance you are meant to be with someone else and not him? Absolutely, but that’s not why he cheated. We justify the horrible events we go through by attaching them to proceeding positive events, but there is no true correlation, and we have got to stop telling ourselves there is. In a world where we strive to find a good reason as to why a bad thing happened, it makes us feel worse to go by this way of thinking that good things emerge from the bad when we come across a tragedy that we simply cannot find any positive things to connect it to.

Subsequent to the events of 9/11, I recall having seen an article floating around the internet that described the minor setbacks certain people working in the towers had on the day of the attack. There were numerous people who were sick, running late, missed their bus, or couldn’t get a cab, and therefore, were not in the buildings when the planes struck. At the time, these people were agitated with the setbacks that occurred, but it ended up saving their lives. The article discussed how when you have setbacks like these, it is important to remember that you are always where you are meant to be because everything happens for a reason. But what this article neglected to touch upon was the much greater number of people who were in the towers when the planes struck. Based on this ideology that everything happens for a reason, that would mean that these people were meant to be in the towers at this time, and meant to die, whereas the people discussed in the article were meant to survive. The idea that everything happens for a reason simply cannot be applied to each and every thing that happens to each and every person without declaring that tragedies are the destiny of so many. Perhaps some things are meant to be—perhaps there are jobs we are meant to have, people we are meant to end up with, adventures we are meant to embark on, but the tragedies that happen to us are not meant to happen, and that is okay. Because we are worth more than that.