Things just happen...not always for a "reason"

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone say, "Things happen for a reason." Although this is a common way to explain otherwise inexplicable life events, I have a problem with this kind of thinking.

One, it is quite egocentric. If you think about it, everything that happens to you in life is somehow tangential to the lives of other people. To quote one of my favorite poets, John Donne, "No man is an island." So,
for example, if I say that the fact that I did not get into graduate school happened for a reason, I am essentially saying that everyone whose paths I crossed in the application process were there for the sole purpose of ensuring that I was not accepted...for a reason that has not yet revealed itself to me. Yet, it cannot be that we are all living lives that are happening for a fixed, unyielding "reason." There are just too many different agendas, some of which surely have to conflict at some point.


There is also a darker side to the school of predestined thought: Some people's lives end tragically and unfairly. I had anorexia and almost died, but I didn't--I got lucky. I know that there have been other young women my same age who did die from anorexia. So, although I am happy to hear when people survive some almost-fatal event, I am always frustrated to hear them say that it was for a "reason." I refuse to believe that people who survive or better than those who don't, or that the people who prematurely die had somehow outlived their purpose.


This is why I try to take what happens in life with an open heart and try to find the good in whatever path I am taking, but I do not believe that I have a destiny that has somehow been carved out for me.