Does everything happen for a reason?

?" Does everything happen for a reason."

The article I read was published on February 11, 2010 by Pail Thagard. 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hot-thought/201002/does-everything-happen-reason-0

He talks about how people cope with difficult situations in their lives, and they sometimes reassure themselves by saying everything happens for a reason. For some people, thinking this way makes it easier to deal with relationship problems, financial crises, disease, death, and even natural disasters such as earthquakes. It can be distressing to think that bad things happen merely through chance or accident. But they do and it all depends of how you go day by day trying to make yourself and your family stronger and what difference you’re going to make. Because yes you can’t sit there and let your life be miserable forever and you can get up and focus on what’s going to make it better and fight to accomplish any new goals you might think will help them. I think the what the author is trying to tell us in his article is that it’s fairly easy to give up and quit, and people reassure themselves that it’s okay to give up because everything happens for a reason, but no people shouldn’t use this saying to just give up on their goals and ambitions they should fight till the last minute and that whole “everything happens for a reason” could also turn out to be a better thing and not give up!

Here's a little something from his passage that tells us about what he thinks about this famous saying !

"The saying that everything happens for a reason is the modern, New Age version of the old religious saying: “It’s God’s will.” The two sayings have the same problem – the complete lack of evidence that they’re true. Not only is there no good evidence that God exists, we have no way of knowing what it is that he (or she) wanted to happen, other than that it actually did happen. Did God really will that hundreds of thousands of people die in an earthquake in one of the world’s poorest countries? What could be the reason for this disaster and the ongoing suffering of millions of people deprived of food, water, and shelter? Why do people find it reassuring that the Haiti earthquake happened for a reason such as the will of God, when such terrible events suggest a high degree of malevolence in the universe or its alleged creator? Fortunately, such events can alternatively (and with good evidence) be viewed as the result of accidents, and possibly even of chance."

"The doctrine that everything happens for a reason has intellectual variants. The German philosopher Hegel maintained that in historical development the real is rational and the rational is real. Similarly, before the recent meltdowns in the financial system, it was a dogma of economic theory that individuals and markets are inherently rational. Some naïve evolutionary biologists and psychologists assume that all common traits and behaviors must have evolved from an optimizing process of natural selection. In hs"tory, economics, biology, and psychology, we should always be willing to consider evidence for the alternative hypothesis that some events occur because of a combination of chance, accidents, and human irrationality. For example, Keynes attributed financial crises in part to “animal spirits”, by which he meant the emotional processes that can make people swing between irrational exuberance and pessimistic despair".

"But if the real isn’t rational, how can we cope with life’s disasters? Fortunately, even without religious or New Age illusions, people have many psychological resources for coping with the difficulties of life. These include cognitive strategies for generating explanations and problem solutions, and emotional strategies for managing the fear, anxiety, and anger that naturally accompany setbacks and threats. Psychological research has identified many ways to build resilience in individuals and groups, such as developing problem solving skills and strong social networks. Life can be highly meaningful even if some things that happen are just accidents. Stuff happens and you deal with it."

This is also true i believe shit happens you go on with life and make the best of it. You only live once and while you’re at it why not live it the way you want to, don’t matter who or what happens you just got to go day by day and make mistakes learn from them life moves on and so should you! :)