Random Acts of Randomness

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while know that I am often nostalgic, humorous (at least I think so!), or self reflective.  Today my post has more of a philosophical nature.  My subject has been on my mind for a long time. It is difficult to write about because I think I am in a very small minority on this topic. In fact, I bet 99 percent of my readers will disagree with me. Don’t worry, it’s not political!

Here is the phrase I abhor:  Everything happens for a reason.  Or it’s corollary: It is all part of God’s greater plan.  To me those two phrases are like screeching chalk on a blackboard, like teeth scraping the tines of a fork, like Donald Trump’s voice.

Those of you who know me well, know that I am a Buddhist. But my feelings about my hated words have nothing to do with religion. I know that we all have our own belief systems and that no one really knows the actual truth. That’s why it is called faith.  So if you want to believe that God has a plan, for each of the  7,000,000 people on earth, then go for it!  I’m not buying it.

To me, everything happens for a reason is just a quick and easy way to explain bad things that happen to us.  Bad things happen to all of us, every day. A guy gets run over by a bus. Is that part of a plan or is it because of a choice he made to not take his eyes off his cell phone?

To me, the world is random and complicated and random and beautiful and random and crazy and random! Our lives are filled with options and choices and decisions. We probably make a thousand decisions every day. From which shoe to put on first to whether to go to Musikfest or not. That’s what makes life exciting. If I feel that someone or some thing has my life all planned out for me, well what kind of life is that?  And if I believe that, then I am not taking responsibility for my actions nor to my reactions to the actions of others.

I think that bad things happen to us because life is full of ups and downs. We would not appreciate the ups if we didn’t have downs.  We wouldn’t learn from the downs if we thought it was just part of a plan.

Thanks for letting me rant and get this out of my system. And if you say to me “everything happens for a reason”, I will just smile and nod.  I think I know why I have been thinking about this lately.  In a few days, it will be the thirtieth anniversary of my daughter’s death at the ag of seventeen. Please don’t try to tell me that her year of suffering and her missing out on an adult life was part of some greater plan.  I am a non-violent man, but whoever “planned” that deserves a punch in the face!

Back to nostalgia next post! See, I just made a decision…all on my own. ;).