[Closed] Do you think things happen for a reason?

I don't personally belive in things happening for a reason, but I do believe that there are consequences (good and bad) for everything that happens to us in life, including decisions that we make. It's down to us as individuals to react to or take advantage of those consequences in order to make the best we can out of any situation we find ourselves in.

From looking at your situation from the outside, it looks like you are doing a grand job of that.

I didn't use to think that there is a higher purpose and it was all just chaos but I sometimes think people and situations are just too strange to be true. Something's just seem to fall in your lap.
My wife kept saying about white feathers mean someone is watching over you and after we lost our dog there was a lot of unexplained white feathers for a few weeks.
Load of nonsense.......... But there was a lot. And they seemed to stop when we got the ashes back.
Nonsense........

No things don't happen for a reason at least not in the spiritual sense. If good things are happening to you it's because of the positive actions that you've taken and thinking that they are caused by anything else is devaluing yourself and your ability to influence the world around you. It's all you.

Yes, things do happen for a reason in the spiritual sense 🙂 Maybe not in a wooo, wooo parallel universe kind of way but your brain can work at a sub-conscious level and at a level beyond your own comprehension; this can affect or influence things that occur seemingly beyond your understanding or without reasonable explanation.

I don't let that guide my thinking or how I behave because that would be a bit, y'know...doolally. However I have experienced some crazy things that makes me think that there is enough room not to deny the possibility of spiritual events or synchronicity. I'm not going to speculate about how it might work though, but will just enjoy the absurdity of it when it happens.

No. Do not ascribe purpose to tragedy. But equally recognise people will respond in ways they may not normally to events that would not otherwise have happened. Often in wonderful ways

The reason that things happen is that things happen.

My wife kept saying about white feathers mean someone is watching over you and after we lost our dog there was a lot of unexplained white feathers for a few weeks.
Load of nonsense………. But there was a lot. And they seemed to stop when we got the ashes back.

Confirmation bias?

In a way yes..... I do believe in 'fate' whatever that is. I don't think it's controlled, or controllable, but if certain people want to ascribe it to a higher force of some sort (religion or karma or whatever) then I'm OK with that*.

What i do know is that sometimes it works against, sometimes for. Was Lyanda's situation 'meant' - I don't know but to accept that it did, for 'reasons' beyond anyone's control is I think healthy. Equally if something good happens, then accept it and go with it, and if you want to consider her hand is in it somewhere, I'm not going to argue against. But enjoy whatever the result is without qualms or compromise.

* eg: my daughter was on a school trip to the HoP. They were supposed to do a visit with our local MP, and then walk over the bridge to the aquarium and have a picnic lunch on the grass by the London Eye. But the weather wasn't good, and so instead they arranged the coaches to pick them up from Parliament Sq and ate lunch on the way home.

Shortly after they boarded their coaches, Khalid Masood drove a car into people crossing the bridge, killing 5 and injuring 50.

No. It’s all just cause-and-effect random chaos.

Don’t worry about it.

Nope, stuff happens and people react to that, people actions change things.

If it helps you get through the terrible shit you've been dealt go with it is what I say.

I have MS, if things happen for a reason then I must have been a shit in a past life :D, I very much do not subscribe to the idea although

If it helps you get through the terrible shit you’ve been dealt go with it is what I say.

Seems fair to me.

Things happen and then retrospectively we write the sequence into a story.

My Dad used to say, one door shuts and another one opens. I’ve always kept that in mind and it always rings true. You’ve dealt with with a massive door shutting, another one was always going to open.

Yin and Yang, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction? I have a quotation, tattooed in Ogham, which say “this too shall pass”, which is how I tend to look at things.

I agree with muppetWrangler. The reason you got help from the forum is because you're a decent bloke, and people like you.

Shortly after they boarded their coaches, Khalid Masood drove a car into people crossing the bridge, killing 5 and injuring 50.

5 people still dead tho. You were just lucky I'm afraid, they weren't. Without wishing to be personal about it, and I also don't think you feel this way; but what if a 'higher power' had intervened to stop your daughter getting involved in the attack? Is your daughter somehow one of the good ones and the people who were killed weren't? The higher power put them in harm's way as punishment? Why did the higher power put the attacker on earth in the first place and guide the events in his life that led him to attack? Why didn't he set things up to get him caught in the act so he could be punished but before he killed anyone? Why wasn't it a bomb that failed to go off and harmed no-one?

I think “things” happen.

The “reason” is imagined.

I believe things happen for a reason. I also believe in God.

Molgrips

All good points, but aimed at the wrong man. I wasn't saying it was in any way attributable, all I said was that if others feel it is some sort of guiding power and that helps them to deal with the slings and arrows of life, then I'm OK with that too. You need to talk to them about why, not me.

Me......just stuff happens and as I said you need to accept sometimes you won't (figuratively speaking) be on the bridge, sometimes you will, and given the have to accept the times you are then you shouldn't reject when fates conspire in your favour either.

It’s almost like Lyanda has made certain things happen and bought people into my life. I miss her like crazy and wish things were different, but it seems like she is guiding me and helping me along the way.

Aside from being a lovely statement, everyone will just chime in with what they think - and they are all right, in their mind...because that's all they have. Our little juicy-bits in our brain that make us function like that, believe in certain things  - and that's what makes us individual - some believe that there is a God, some that there isn't a God, some that there are things we don't understand, some that believe things happen for a reason, some that we are decedents of aliens and  some that believe they have no idea what is going on!

The whole spectrum of beliefs is what helps us all get through the joke that is life. No right, no wrong, no knowns and no unknowns. Just what our juicy bits work for us,as individuals.

And history shows that when we try to enforce what works for us on others, it all goes a bit pear-shaped 🙂

Things happen based on a balance of probabilities, with some randomness thrown in. Humans are just good at making false positive pattern recognition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_the_pigeon

But your late wifes influence on you, means that that the probabilities of certain good things happening to you are perhaps not independent probabilities - but dependent ones.

https://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/vol6/dependent_events

Keep fighting the good fight gnusmas.

rbw puts it better and more sensitively than me, listen to him.

If that is what you believe and it’s helping you to get through each day then that is all that matters.

I also agree with all those saying that you’re a good bloke. I can’t believe that anyone could read your threads on here and not want to reach out or help you and your family in some way.

Nope. It's just life..

When I said things have been happening, I meant in my personal life. I wasn't referring to anyone from STW, I already know everyone here is already amazing and wonderful. Mostly. Well, sometimes.

Like i said, I don't believe in fate and am not spiritual. I am a rational and logical person normally. I completely understand everything you have all said and I agree with you all.

It's the way my counsellor has made me think about things in a different way. And a couple of people have appeared in my life I didn't know before. I know everything has happened because of the situation we are in, and i am extremely grateful to everyone for everything.

I guess, like has been said, people use whatever train of thought they need/can to help them through. None of which are wrong or right, but sometimes it helps.

As i say, life is random and sometimes unfair; othertimes 'the fates' just fall your way. Some people can accept the randomness and shrug, others need some sort of belief in a controlling hand of destiny to help them accept it. It's not for me (or others) to judge people that prefer to ascribe it to whatever force they ascribe it to.

I met my wife through fate; short version- because someone was off work ill*

* ill! they'd be *****ing murdered if I met them now 😉