Stop Saying Everything Happens For a Reason

Zone of Non-being

When a personal setback or national tragedy takes place, many people are searching for explanations. In the understandable desire to alleviate anxiety, a popular phrase is typically offered: everything happens for a reason. While uttered in a spirit of good intentions, this line of thinking is problematic for at least three reasons.

First, it is a disempowering worldview. People are framed as mere actors in a play directed by an external force. We become puppets who do nothing more than regurgitate from a script. Control is theorized as being outside the individual; thus reducing humanity to an instrument. Such an idea wages a frontal assault on agency and responsibility – sending the message that beings are just -and can only be- means to an end. Depending on the psychological makeup of each person, this could strengthen the original feeling of despondency that it seeks to ameliorate. Alternatively, this perspective…

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