Do you think everything happens for a reason?
I am not a person that believes that everything happens for a reason because I think it takes away from our personal agency. I think that things simply happen and then people give them meaning and react according to the meaning they gave it which leads to further events and consequences. We have much more influence over our lives than we like to believe we do (at least in my humble opinion).
Now, for a bit of a hot take, I think that this notion that everything happens for a reason lets people believe that their inaction or silence is not a negative thing when bad things happen. This also plays into beliefs we see in a lot of religions that everything is going according to a plan or that the deity you believe in has already decided how your life and the lives of others will play out which allows you to be a passive bystander who doesn’t have to react to anything.
I also find this “everything happens for a reason” notion incredibly aggravating when we are speaking about traumatic events that people go through such as violence, death of loved ones etc. I know that people use this sentence with good intentions in those situations, but I personally cannot stand to hear it.
This post ended up a bit more negative than I intended so I will stop now before I spiral any further into a rant.
The second part of The Stanhill Series is out and you can get it on Amazon: Beneath The Mask.
If you haven’t moved to Stanhill yet, you can get the first novel on Amazon as well: Little Rebellion