Everything happens for a reason

[Richard Channing]

You hear it a lot these days. Is this a philosophy you subscribe to? Or do you think it's just something people say to make themselves feel better when things go wrong?

 

[Willie Oleson]

But do they know what the reason is?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Life is a mysterious blend of free will and fate... Isn't that kind of the same topic?

 

[Frank Underwood]

It's one of those cliched sayings I've always found annoying. It's like when a child is killed and someone says "God needed an angel." I find it patronizing and dumb.

Cliched tripe like that doesn't soften the blows of life.

 

[Michael Torrance]

But do they know what the reason is?

Everything does happen for a reason, and that reason is we chose it. But people use it as a ludicrous philosophical comfort blanket, often to assure themselves that someone else is in charge of their actions. My favourite poem on this subject is Frost's 'The Road Not Taken," which of course most people read with the mind-frame Frost wanted to critique: rationalizing bad choices to make it sound as if one doesn't really regret them, when in reality they keep coming back to them unable to let go of their mistakes.

And it is just as bad when someone thinks fate/God/the golden monkey set out a cosmic plan to achieve their own personal target: for example, athletes scoring and pointing to heaven. Yes, God took some time out from stopping a Tsunami to make sure you become MVP today.

 

[Richard Channing]

It's one of those cliched sayings I've always found annoying. It's like when a child is killed and someone says "God needed an angel." I find it patronizing and dumb.

Cliched tripe like that doesn't soften the blows of life.

One saying that bothers me that's particularly popular at the moment is "It is what it is". Which has to be one of the most bland and useless pieces of advice or reassurance. What does that even mean?

It is was it is? Oh, and all this time here I was thinking it is what it isn't. Thanks!!

 

[Alexis]

One saying that bothers me that's particularly popular at the moment is "It is what it is". Which has to be one of the most bland and useless pieces of advice or reassurance. What does that even mean?

It was it is? Oh, and all this time here I was thinking it is what it isn't. Thanks!!

A young girl I work with says this all the time and I have to admit I find it kind of funny. She mostly uses it to describe the absolute shambles that often occur in her life.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Everything does happen for a reason, and that reason is we chose it

Is everything that happens to us a matter of choice?

It was it is? Oh, and all this time here I was thinking it is what it isn't.

It is what it is unless it's an impostor, those people are fake.

 

[James from London]

I think it's human nature to want to impose a narrative on things. Like I never found Princess Diana very interesting when she was alive, but once she had died while being chased by the paparazzi, her life suddenly became a Shakespearean tragedy: it was all leading up to this point. Even if it wasn't really.

It's easy to be cynical about people wanting to imbue stuff with meaning that probably isn't there -- I'm especially intolerant of it on social media -- but I think it's impossible not to do it to some extent. I think we'd go mad if we didn't.

 

[Michael Torrance]

It's easy to be cynical about people wanting to imbue stuff with meaning that probably isn't there -- I think we'd go mad if we didn't.

I find from my experience with people, that they are the other way around.

Is everything that happens to us a matter of choice?

Not everything. If you are the passenger of Germanwings flight 9525, something happened to you that wasn't your choice. But it wasn't something written in the stars, the Bible, the book of Nostradamus, the Vedas, or the tea leaves either.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Not everything. If you are the passenger of Germanwings flight 9525, something happened to you that wasn't your choice. But it wasn't something written in the stars, the Bible, the book of Nostradamus, the Vedas, or the tea leaves either.

And yet it's hard not to feel some kind of "destiny" when you manage to escape a terrible tragedy, eventhough your choice has nothing to do with it.

There are so many situations when I think "Yes! this had to happen! I had to find this <precious whatever> because it means so much to me. It's destiny".

 

[Michael Torrance]

There are so many situations when I think "Yes! this had to happen! I had to find this <precious whatever> because it means so much to me. It's destiny".

I understand why people want to believe it--I just can't ever bring myself to buy it. Except, perhaps, when it comes to me and you finding each other on the forum.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I just can't ever bring myself to buy it.

I think we all understand how random life is, but to live your life as something random is another thing. Maybe that's similar to what James said.
In the grand scheme of things we are nothing, but as a person we are everything. The knowledge is too abstract for real life, interestingly, make-believe isn't.

 

[Frank Underwood]

It's easy to be cynical about people wanting to imbue stuff with meaning that probably isn't there -- I'm especially intolerant of it on social media -- but I think it's impossible not to do it to some extent. I think we'd go mad if we didn't.

For the most part, I do think people who say things like "everything happens for a reason" mean well. They just don't realize what they're saying is an empty platitude.

 

[Daniel Avery]

We're soap fans. We watch a throwaway scene or hear a line that doesn't quite 'fit' what we expected and we immediately think "There has to be some reason why they threw that in there. The writers were laying groundwork for some big reveal, or were tossing out a clue they want us to notice." Mary coughed. Oh, she must be terminally ill. Joe got a phone call and said it was a wrong number. He's hiding an affair with a co-worker. We (and I guess by extension, everyone) don't want things to be un-structured and meaningless, so we try to 'fill in the blanks' by hanging all these events onto a structure we already have in our mind. This assumes of course there is a omnipotent 'writer' throwing all this stuff out there, expecting us to understand where he/she is headed with all these plot points. Does it all actually fit together in the end, or is it just a lot of stream-of-consciousness stuff that was never meant to make any sense beyond the time it aired?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I just like the golden monkey thing.

 

[Toni]

You hear it a lot these days. Is this a philosophy you subscribe to? Or do you think it's just something people say to make themselves feel better when things go wrong?

 

[Alexis]

A young girl I work with says this all the time and I have to admit I find it kind of funny. She mostly uses it to describe the absolute shambles that often occur in her life.

She broke her wrist last night working with me... I insisted it wasn't broken, she'd be fine with some paracetamol and made her work on. She came in today with a sick line and said, "It is what it is..."

 

[Willie Oleson]

I insisted it wasn't broken, she'd be fine with some paracetamol and made her work on

Oh wow, that would so not happen to me. If it feels like it's broken then it's time to go home and watch a fabulous tv show.

 

[Alexis]

Oh wow, that would so not happen to me. If it feels like it's broken then it's time to go home and watch a fabulous tv show.

LOL.... Well she just hit it off a door handle, I couldn't see how that would brake it. To be fair the nurse at work looked at it and said she may have staved or sprained it. But no, it's broken. It was all very bruised today.