How Everything Really Happens For a Reason
"Everything happens for a reason."
Does it really?
Is it as easy as saying and believing that everything happens for a reason?
Could it be that it’s up to you if everything happens for a reason?
What if you are the one who needs to create that reason?
Look back on your life. What are the things that get us to say that "everything happens for a reason"? It’s the painful things in life. We use that phrase as a consolation in life’s difficult moments.
When we go through a painful experience that we had no control over and seemingly didn’t do anything to deserve, for most people, the only way they can go on with their lives without being crushed by this experience is to say, "Everything happens for a reason."
However, it’s not enough to just say it. It is also not enough to believe it, no matter how hard you believe.
If you are just passively existing and trying to convince yourself that everything happens for a reason, you are just letting life give you more and more experiences that need this kind of justification until you have no energy or strength left to actually believe that everything happens for a reason. You are going through life hoping not to have too many experiences where you have to convince yourself that everything happens for a reason.
You have to do your part in there being a reason for everything that happened to you.
If you keep creating yourself and your life, you end up with a story. A story that wasn’t easy to live through, a story that was painful at moments, but a story that was worth living. A story worth telling.
When you have a story that is worth telling, then every single thing that happened to you truly was for a reason, because it played a part in creating your story.
It is up to you whether everything happens for a reason or not.
Look back on your life once again.
Was there a moment when you were able to say, "I was right, that painful thing from the past really did happen for a reason"?
Did you ever get to that point where you finally saw the reason for the painful thing(s) from your past?
If you have, can you honestly say that you had nothing to do with it? No matter what you believe in, no matter the religion or philosophy you subscribe to, can you really say that the reason was just given to you?
Wouldn’t it be fair to say that every single time that things ended up happening for a reason, it was because of the person you became, and not because all of a sudden, a single thing happened that justified all the previous pain and struggle?
If you ever met a person who has experienced something painful and even traumatic in their life but is now able to smile and be happy with who they are and what their life is, you will notice one thing in common with all those people, no matter how unique their stories are:
Every single one of those people took the story called their life into their own hands. They didn’t wait for "the reason" to fall into their lap. They created themselves into individuals who cannot help but say, "Yes, everything was for a reason. And that reason is me as I am right now and my life as it is."
As the original self-creator said:
"And all my creating and striving amounts to this, that I create and piece together into one, what is now fragment and riddle and grisly accident."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
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