Does everything happen for a reason?

Well, it’s not been THE best week of my life. The stress of trying to sort out my car insurance (since its now been confirmed that my car is a complete and utter write off), trying to rest up so my injuries heal, battling jet lag and fighting against a tide of work is slowly and surely taking its toll.

I’ve been trying to hold on to the fact that everything happens for a reason and I wondered if that’s something you believe in too? I mean, being in a car accident isn’t ever something that you’d want to happen but the fact I walked away with a bruises and injured ribs instead of it being much worse must’ve been part of the plan in some way. Truth is I convinced myself that I had worked hard and deserved my new car but I was never really comfortable driving it. I don’t know what it was, but every time I got on the motorway I had this feeling it was going to break down. A complete and random thought as it was a newish car and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.  

The other odd thing about the day of that crash was that we weren’t meant to go to New York that day, we were supposed to have gone 2 days earlier but we had our trip postponed. Of course you can’t life on what if’s but it does make you think what if we had gone on the day we were originally meant to fly.

It also got me thinking about other things that must’ve happened for a reason. Like on 9/11 – the stories of people who slept in, got stuck in a queue or nearly got run over by Gwyneth Paltrow that saved them being at their usual spot on that fateful day and subsequently surviving. Surely, there’s some divine intervention stepping in there?

But what if it’s not? What if it’s just a case of luck? Saying “everything happens for a reason” really is just a coping mechanism for dealing with difficult times – isn’t it? Are those who don’t say it any happier?

I want to know what you think. Do you think things happen for a reason?

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Author: Rachael

I'm a journalist and creative consultant. I write about how busy women (just like you) can live, work and eat - better.

4 thoughts on “Does everything happen for a reason?”

  1. I want to believe that everything happens for a reason. I lost my babies in utero, and I want to believe that it was for a higher purpose. <3

  2. It does give us comfort to think everything happens for a reason. I think it helps us to make sense of things and come to terms with them. Strangely enough I’ve often mentioned to people about having a ‘car crash moment’, not that anyone would want one, but they do give you a chance to think, remind yourself what’s important, re-evaluate and sometimes change things.

    Your still here, still breathing, still writing, still thinking, thank goodness 🙂 x

  3. Since I lost my son Frankie a few people have said to me including my own mother, “Everything happens for a reason/purpose”, and I’d think WTF is that all about, I can’t think of ANY reason or purpose for it to be MY son who was stillborn. That is, until we found out that had he been born alive he would have been severely mentally and physically disabled, and probably wouldn’t have lived very long, because he had two copies of chromosome 15. His condition would have been way worse than Downs Syndrome and the specialists told us what he had was “incompatible with life”. 1 in 300,000 have this condition, and that was the best guess at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham as they had never come across it in a baby before!

    So yes, I do think that things happen for a reason. While I desperately want to hold my son in my arms and wish things had been different, the life that he would have had doesn’t bear thinking about. He was spared a painful existence.

    But coming back to you and your car accident, remember this. The car can be replaced, there are billions and billions of them out there. But there is only one you, and you are irreplaceable. And I was so relieved when I read on facebook that nothing serious had happened to you. I know you feel a bit battered and bruised from the accident now, but it will pass soon and you’ll be back to your old self again 🙂 and as you’ve discovered, the car didn’t feel right for you anyway. Gut feelings usually always win out 🙂 xxx

  4. OK, there is an element of coping mechanism at work in the platitude that “everything happens for a reason”. The in-sight I like along the same lines, but, I believe, more empowering to the “happenee” is Andrew Carnegie’s “every obstacle contains the seed of an equal or greater opportunity”. And if that opportunity be the reason – so be it! Thank YOU, THANK You, THANK YOU. prp

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