Everything Happens for a Reason?

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Road Guy

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Anyone else subscribe to this? (& I don’t mean in a religious sense like the phrase is often used)

I used to think this phrase was utter BS, but now I am starting to become a believer….

For example does rejection of a job you thought you really wanted lead to a better opportunity 6 months later? (or relationship, etc)

Or does life just always balance out in the end?

 
I would like to think that everything happens for a reason. But I think there are people with just bad luck that can never catch a break.

 
I think everything is random, but I also believe that for reasonably capable people (like most of us are), things always work out because we make sure they work out.  I'm the poster child for this - I've missed many opportunities and taken many that I had second, third, and fourth thoughts about.  But things have worked out just fine.  

 
I tell myself that some things just weren't meant to be, but that's mostly so that I can convince myself that I don't need to buy this purse/these shoes right now. If I keep thinking about it/them and come back and it's not there, then I will survive.

But for real life things, I think life just balances out for the most part. I've missed things I really wanted and ended up being happy with how things turned out. I don't think it's necessarily because it was "meant" to happen, but more like @Dleg said, we just make sure it works out anyway. 

 
Anyone else subscribe to this? (& I don’t mean in a religious sense like the phrase is often used)

I used to think this phrase was utter BS, but now I am starting to become a believer….

For example does rejection of a job you thought you really wanted lead to a better opportunity 6 months later? (or relationship, etc)

Or does life just always balance out in the end?
I say no.  I do not believe that there is some external invisible force somehow guiding the outcome of events.  Good things happen to good people, bad things happen to good people.  Bad things happen to bad people, good things happen to bad people.  You can personally control the things you can control and the things you can't control are left to chance, odds, and happenstance.  If you get laid off, it isn't because there is some "greater plan" for you in a new career.  You got laid off.  Period.  You may find a better job and want to call it "meant to be" but I'd just say you (keyword 'you') found a better job, congrats.  There is no evidence of an external guiding force that I know of? 

 
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In this life, there's no way to definitively prove whether or not things "just happen", but I think your attitude matters much more than a theoretical higher force's design. Even if life is random, one can view it as random random (**** just happens) or random good (**** happens but eventually for the best). I think people who have hope generally have better outcomes, because they're able to take the positive out of a crappy situation and move forward with minimal discouragement. Plus they're generally more pleasant to be around.

@Road Guy are you guys pregnant again or something?

 
In this life, there's no way to definitively prove whether or not things "just happen", but I think your attitude matters much more than a theoretical higher force's design. Even if life is random, one can view it as random random (**** just happens) or random good (**** happens but eventually for the best). I think people who have hope generally have better outcomes, because they're able to take the positive out of a crappy situation and move forward with minimal discouragement. Plus they're generally more pleasant to be around.

@Road Guy are you guys pregnant again or something?
If true, we all pretty much know the reason.

 
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no its not quite as bad as a 43 year old having a baby! jesus Christ even the thought of that.... ((shudders))

I don't want to jinx it, but I have been doing some major strategizing to get a new job and running into a bunch of dead ends in jobs that I should have been a slam dunk for and then it turns up there may be something worth staying here after all..

 
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