I'm sure everyone has heard the phrase, "Everything happens for a reason." In most cases, the thing that happened was bad and the ultimate reason it happened is, in the end, good. The phrase usually refers to some divine interaction that causes one thing so that something else can become of it. But look at the phrase from a cause-and-effect point of view. It is very true that everything does happen for a reason and that reason is a cause. Everything has a cause and without some action there can be no reaction. Even without some divine intervention, things would still happen and life would still move forward. Whenever I hear that phrase I don't think that God has intervened in someone's life for a purpose. Instead, I think what events took place, or what was the cause of the thing that "happened". And, most often, the cause is a simple choice that a human being made.
Say you were out one night getting take out from your favorite Chinese food restaurant and a drunk driver, who was on a binge after his wife had just left him, ran a red light and hit your car. You were badly injured and had to spend weeks in a hospital. It would seem to be a tragedy and you would be furious that this seemingly avoidable incident took place. But while you were in the hospital you became acquainted with a very beautiful nurse and a year later you ended up marrying this nurse. At your wedding day, you might be explaining how you met and someone might say, "See! Everything happens for a reason!" But does this mean that the whole occurrence was a part of a divine plan? Was the accident supposed to happen so that you would meet the girl you were to marry? Its possible, I won't deny that. However, if you look at it in another light, it was simply a series of many choices that led the parties involved to that outcome. What if, on the night of the accident, you decided to just stay in and make a sandwich? What if the drunk driver decided he was too intoxicated to drive and call a cab? Going back further, what if the drunk driver treated his wife better so that she didn't leave him? What if your future wife decided to choose business as her college major instead of nursing?
I understand that in life there is infinite "what ifs" but all of those amount to infinite human choices. Again, I am not saying it is not possible that this is all a part of God's plan and that there is a divine web in which all humans are connected. My only problem with that scenario is that, as it is widely believed, humans have the power of free will. This means that we have the power of choice. So all of the choices that led to you getting hit by that drunk driver were ultimately made by human beings. If that were not the case than free will would amount to nothing. It is the power of choice that ultimately interests me. Our lives' are just a long string of choices and these choices are the cause of everything. Any action can be traced back to a choice that was made by a human being. Tacos or burgers? A sedan or minivan? Monogamous or infidelity? Provoke or pacify? Everything can be traced back to one choice or a string of choices. There is a number of reasons why we choose one thing over another. Psychologists have proposed many theories and the battle over nature vs. nurture is still raging on today. No one can dispute the affect that environmental influences have on people but no one can deny inherited dispositions either. Is it just someone's personality that drives the choices they make or are outside forces so strong that they can influence most decisions made throughout the day? Odds are that both factors play a vital role in human decision making throughout the day but that doesn't satisfy my need to know why. I'm sure if you broke down every single decision made in a day you would be able to pinpoint the reason for most decisions. But there are still some actions, some choices that humans make, that leave you scratching your head. These are the decisions that perplex me the most. I am aware that this seems like a stupid thing to ponder over and that it may very well be an unanswerable question but, as I said before, every decision has a consequence. Every action a reaction. Everything that happens has a cause.
As expressed in the quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, these words are not my philosophy. This post is not an atheist one and it is not anti-religion. In fact, there is no real point to this post. I suppose I just want to express the importance of the choices that we all make. These choices drive not only your own life, but the lives of everyone. Life is a series of choices strung together. No matter how insignificant these choices may seem they do still have a consequence. Any choice could impact an infinite number of lives. And, as Eleanor Roosevelt puts it, "the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility".
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