Everything Happens For A Reason

“You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.” – Sam Harris
Everything happens for a reason.
Everything happens for a reason.
Everything happens for a reason.

All throughout my upbringing, this phrase has been said to me.

Initially, I assumed the mental model to be true, and because of so, I adopted it into my own life.

Of course there always has to be a reason for something, as it’s just in our nature to want everything we do to be meaningful…But what if there is no reason? 

What if things just happen because of our actions? 

This past week, I made a mistake during an interview, and when I talked about it with my friends, the phrase comes out once again:

Everything happens for a reason.

Sure, it’s definitely reassuring to think that there is a higher purpose to me being an idiot, and it’s true that ingraining this in my head will allow me to stop dwelling on something that has happened in the past…

But what exactly is the reason that we’re talking about here? 

From a strictly objective lens, the “reason” is that I simply messed up and that this act of screwing up will change the course of events regarding my future.

Moving onward from my mistake, I’ll continue to make specific actions that will result in a distinct outcome.

As this outcome is reached, I’ll then think that the very result is the reason for why I did what I did in the past. But when stepping back and analyzing what’s going on here, isn’t this all just hindsight bias? 

The more I think about it, the more I realize how useless this phrase is, as one can literally assign a reason to any outcome and make a reason out of any action.

For example, I can step on a lego and silently reassure myself that this happened for a reason. 

Yeah, to ruin my day…That is the sacred “reason”.

However, the very act of me thinking that there’s a reason behind this allows me to let stepping on a lego not ruin my day, if that makes sense.

When writing about how we assign meaning to everything that happens in our lives, it only leads to the discussion of free will, determinism, and other thought-provoking subjects. 

At the end of the day, you have two options: Option A is to believe that everything happens for a reason, and Option B is to believe that everything doesn’t happen for a reason. 

The interesting thing is that there is no right or wrong answer here, as there are arguments on both sides of the fence.

At least for me, I’ve lived my life through both perspectives, and I can assure you that the former (Option A) will always be better than the latter (Option B).

Believing that everything happens for a reason will allow you to respond to any setback and to avoid the trap of thinking that everything is meaningless, developing two qualities that are essential when it comes to fulfilling your maximum potential.

So yes, everything does happen for a reason, and it’s up to you to decide what exactly that reason is.

JL