Everything Happens for a Reason?

I used to be opposed to that saying for the same reason… It seemed like an excuse as well as a meaningless phrase to cling onto for comfort in adverse situations. Then I realized that though that is one way to interpret the saying, it can also have an exactly opposite meaning.. You can make everything have a reason or purpose by finding motivation from downfalls. For example I couldn’t find work for a long time and started getting down on myself about it, but it only opened the door for me to find a job I really like, when I would’ve been working at a restaurant otherwise(I did the food industry for too long and started hating it) since those are all the first places I applied that. So me getting denied by 20 other places happened for a reason, but only because I chose to see it that way. I could have said “damn I guess I’m unhire-able” and assumed that being jobless was also happening for a reason…. I’m kinda rambling now but hopefully you see my point.

If you’re not trying to do the things you imagine, then what is imagination to you?

If you wait around for shit to happen it might, but it probably wont.

I have a hard time believing that everything happens for a reason becuase I dont want to think that I have no control on how I live my own life. I think that as long as people try to make the best of their life at a particular moment then it will lead you to the right path and have a happier life. Especially if you grew up in a household like mine. My parents didnt push me in any direction, they were happy for me no matter what I chose to do. And chose I did, ive done many things in my life already and I feel like some people dont trust their own decisions so they wouldnt have gotten as many oppurtunities that ive had. If they are waiting for someone else to make the decisions for them because they think that it will all fall into place maybe it won’t. someone once told me that insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result i feel like this could be applied to someone who is looking for a different outlook on life. The statement everything happens for a reason is a logical statement. I mean people usually have reasons for doing whatever it is they are doing at the very moment, i guess in my mind it just comes down to what are those reasons??

Well I’m a believer that everything happens for a reason but at the same time you have to make things happens, because in the end you are the engine that moves you own life. There is a reason for everything, but that does not mean that that reason cannot be your own will. And if there is something happening that you don’t like then change it, maybe that something is there to tell you ” wake the fuck up and start moving, if you want things to change.”

I agree with @kevin “Everything that happens to you, is the best possible thing that can happen to you.”

♥

Everything happens for the reason you give it.

It seems everything comes full circle, it seems.

Well, it depends on which way you look at it?
“Everything happens for a reason” could mean that some reason in the past caused something to happen. In which case, I say “yes.” There is some cause and effect reason for things to happen. We may not know all of the causes (we call those things “random” or “law” or “probability”), but there is some reason. However, we may or may not have some degree of control over our immediate circumstance and how those events resolve.
“Everything happens for a reason” could mean that there is some “lesson” (some future reason) to learn from any situation. This seems to presuppose some sort of external design, which may or may not directly interact with our individual existences.
My own personal feelings on the matter is; “Superstitious people have bad luck.” That is to say, people who believe in “luck” or “fate” or whatever you want to call it will blame “bad” things on such, and pretend like there is something better coming or some lesson to learn to “balance” the scales. These same people struggle day in and day out to make good things happen in their lives or “earn” the good life. IMHO, these people are losing out on real opportunities to let real things happen in their lives. Good things and bad things, good events and bad events don’t exist. There are just things, and sometimes things happen. That’s the way it’s been since the beginning. And that’s the way it will always be. Since the first explosion of existence, through to the last dissolution of matter, things happen, things are, and then more things happen and things are not.
By stopping your struggle to cause certain things and avoid others, you can experience and appreciate the truest nature of the things that are.

Evidentally, things do happen for a reason. But when something bad happens and we are able to whip back around and say no, this isn’t how this was suppose to happen, we are becoming a better person. We are fighting for what we want and I’m almost positive that that is suppose to happen. But only some of us actually have the ability and strength to keep going and fight on, Because THAT”S what WE are SUPPOSE to do.

I’m kinda agreeing with you manimal. What happens to you is what you made happen, but I look at it in a larger scale. There are some things out of your ‘individual’ control, completely but you still have influence. You can decide your personal fate, but collectively as a human consciousness we decide our fate together in bigger terms, and because of that, some things are just out of our individual control.
Does the universe decide its own fate?

@luigiblue, they aren’t mutually exclusive. You can fight to all heaven to get something, and if you don’t get it then it is beyond your power to get, which would mean it was meant to be in a logical sense. The problem then becomes if you use this as an excuse not to do something then to argue whether or not it was meant to be is a pointless philosophical argument over whether there is predestination or not. Moral is: try

@luigiblue, If you are to agree that everything happens for a reason then you are essentially accepting the teleological argument as binding. Such that reason is used synonymous to purpose. A fortiori, you are acknowledging and accepting a form of ontological pre-determinism.
I don’t believe the former because as subjective beings we are confined by our perceptual and intellectual capacities; reason is simply that which we believe to be reason. With regards to the latter I do believe there is a predetermined ontology, though one lacking in meaning or purpose.

@tangledupinplaid21, I absolutely adore your artwork, you have exceptional talent! I’m looking forward to seeing some more :)