Everything happens for a reason.
I believe that everything happens for a reason. I wholeheartedly believe that this is the case because when something bad happens to us, it help us to appreciate the good times more and to help us to grow as a person. I don’t necessarily believe this in a religious sense since I consider myself atheist, but I do think that the universe has a lot of experiences and paths laid out for us purposefully. Bad things and experiences have to exist in our world otherwise we could not fully appreciate the happier moments and times in our life.
When I was in middle school, my parents got divorced. As a result, my dad moved away and my brothers, Vince and Kevin, and I stayed with my mother. She picked up small jobs here and there to try and provide for us. For the first time in my life I discovered what it was like to struggle to make it from paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, my dad continued to live lushly with his paychecks from the army, remarried a woman in the army, and had another kid. The three of them live in an expensive neighborhood with the newest cars and the largest TVs I’ve ever seen, while I learned how to pinch my pennies because we needed to. I got a job my senior year and most of the money either went to my mother to help pay the bills so we had somewhere to live or so I could buy my food so my mom didn’t have to. As a result, I grew some resentment towards my father and step mother because they did not seem to care about how much my mom was struggling.
But what came out of these hard times? I understood from an early age that the world isn’t always peachy and easy-going. I consider this to be a positive thing, because I would hate to live in ignorance of the evils in the world and suddenly find out the hard way one day. Additionally, I watched my mom go from a woman who seemed to have the only purpose of being a wife and mother turn into someone who is extremely independent and crafty. She does not need a man anymore, but she had relied on one previously for sixteen years. She definitely would not be who she is today if she and my father had never gotten divorced. Also, if my parents never separated, we would have moved across the country who knows how many more times. I was able to finally live in one place for the first time in my life, in Georgia, and for that I am grateful. I have so many lifelong relationships with people there, and that would not be the case had we moved.
Maybe this mantra is just something to help me cope. Whether if it is or not, I am a much happier and optimistic person because of it. Either way, I apply it to every situation I encounter. While the reason something happens may not be immediately clear, I’m always able to look back at something and see the growth I had or the growth others around me had. My favorite quote is “no rain, no flowers,” which is applicable to “everything happens for a reason.” If there are no hard times and no rain and gloom, then you would not have the chance to grow and learn and appreciate the good times as a result.
I also strongly believe that things happen for a reason, but we do not always know what that reason is, and we may never know. It could be to push us towards a goal, to push someone around us, or it could be to teach us a valuable lesson that we otherwise might now have known. It is up to each of us to find meaning in everything so that nothing that happens happens in vain.