Everything Happens For a Reason. Why I Believe That To Be True.

In philosophy people debate on whether we have free will or we have a destiny (or fate). The idea that everything happens for a reason means that you don’t have control over your life and that you can’t prevent the things that are going to happen in your life. While I didn’t disagree with the idea of fate, I didn’t truly start believing in the idea that everything happens for a reason, until the morning my college crush (this is at the time I first went to college, which was when I was eighteen) Stephanie, dropped out.

One thing about me, is that I do have a learning disability, which is that it can take me a longer time to process information. At that time, I took advantage of being able to write tests in a separate room, which is basically a room that’s attached to the office that deals with learning disabled people. I am only telling you this, because it’s relevant to this story.

That morning I had a test to write, and as I headed off to school, I ran into a problem. The night before, I had decided to pull up my hand break in my car, which was a car from 1997. Given that the story took place in 2007, the car was already ten years old. As I went to pull the hand break down, it wouldn’t budge. It was stuck. I tried several times to get it to go back down and it would not work. Fortunately earlier on in the school year, I had been taking the bus to school, so I knew the route to get to the college. I rushed to get on the second bus, that would take me to the college and knew that when I got in I would have been a little over an hour late. That didn’t bother me because I knew that the test was waiting in the separate room and I was sure I would still be able to write it, especially given the circumstances.

I got off the bus and headed into the school. As a went through the doors, to my left, I saw Stephanie who was about to leave. She explained that she had just dropped out of the program and was going home. I think she was probably working at the time and trying to juggle schoolwork as well, which I know from firsthand experience is a challenging task. She was three weeks from the end of the second term, failing a lot of classes and decided at the time school was not working out for her. Now as of writing this, it’s been several years since the last time we talked, so I don’t remember how our final conversation went entirely, but I do know that it was a moment that I didn’t ever remember having experienced before. It was the first time I remember really speaking from the heart. Nothing rehearsed, no time to come up with someone that I would have been satisfied with. I said what came to mind, what came from the heart, I wished her well, and then we walked are separate ways. I never confessed that I had a crush on her, partly because I thought we would have more time.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, that maybe it was a coincidence that I happened to run into her as she was leaving, but there are other factors at play. For one thing, when I got home my grandma (who lived with us, and still does), who at the time would have been 74, was able to push the hand break down, and move my vehicle so that she could go out. How come I had so much trouble, and she was able to move the vehicle? Then between transferring buses I could have missed the second bus. If I was able to make the earlier bus, the last encounter with Stephanie would have not happened. Then finally, when I took the test, it took me more than an hour to finish the test. If I had taken the test at the time I was supposed to, I would have been done, after she left. I wouldn’t have even thought to walk by the front of the school after I was done.

One of the frustrating things about believing that everything happens for a reason, is that you don’t know the reason why something major happens, until later down the road. Sometimes that realization happens minutes later, or hours, or days, weeks, months, or in my case years. I just knew that had to be a reason why I had that interaction with her, when I did. What I thought at the time, was that I was destined to meet her again. Somehow, someway, somewhere I would meet her again and we would talk again. For five years I didn’t try to date or put myself out there. I kept thinking I would meet Stephanie again, so it didn’t make sense to look for a soulmate in anyone else. By the time the fifth anniversary of Stephanie dropping out, I made the decision to let the idea of meeting her again, go. I decided to not wait for her, to come back into my life. I never forgot about her, and she will always have a place in my heart as the person who got me to believe in fate.

Like I stated before, it can take a long time to realize why something major happened, and it was only until later on that I came to the conclusion that the reason why we talked after she dropped out, was so that I could be gifted the chance to wish her well. Maybe one day we will see each other. Or maybe we won’t, and that I am okay with. There is a part of me that still would like to see her again, but if it’s not meant to be, then it’s not meant to be.

My misunderstandings with why things happen for a reason, did not end with Stephanie. You see, within two weeks of me letting go of waiting for Stephanie, I met Connie. Because I met Connie when I did, I thought that because I let go of Stephanie, I was gifted with Connie, who I thought was destined to be my girlfriend.

If you are laughing, or facepalming at this idea right now, I understand. Looking back, I think there was a possibility for a healthy relationship to form, if I didn’t firmly believe that she was meant to be my girlfriend, and potential soulmate. Aside from my belief in the role she was supposed to play in my life, being wrong, I also knew nothing about how to act or pursue someone I was interested in.

In high school I had a crush on someone, who was in a relationship with someone for at least a couple of years, and I very rarely shared a class, or any time with her. In college, I had a crush on Stephanie and while I did want to get to know her, and while we did have a handful of conversations, she dropped out three weeks before the end of the second term, in first year. Like I mentioned earlier, those five years, following her dropping out, I never attempted to date. That meant, all the stupid mistakes that you make when you first really want to pursue someone, happened when I was twenty three. This also means that Connie was meant to be the person I learned a lot from. I will get into those lessons and reflection, in a later blog.

In order to really believe that everything major in life, happens for a reason, multiple steps need to take place to get you to that eventful moment. It has to be things where coincidence would no longer be a factor due to how many coincidences would have had to occur to get you there. For example, all of the things that led up to me seeing Stephanie that last time. There were too many coincidences, all happening one after the other.

As you go through life, you will start to see that major things in your life happen for a reason. Sometimes it’s not always this grand, sweeping, epic reason, but I do believe that there is a greater plan. A lot of the times in the moment, especially when it’s negative, you can’t see there being a good reason why something happened. An example of that is when I ended my false friendship with the guy I call leech. He showed me that I have a limit to my kindness, something that I didn’t know I had. Even though I had dealt with a leech for eight years, I learned a lot about friendship and what friendship isn’t. Sometimes the meaning changes over time. Other times the event that occurred could have been like the ending of another chapter, and a beginning of a new one. For example, within six or seven months of dealing with the aftermath of my failed relationship attempt with Connie, I met Jaclyn. She not only helped me heal, but she was also there to show me the life I wanted to have.

At my most cynical, believing that everything happens for a reason is a coping mechanism to get through life, and a way to comprehend things that are not easy to understand in life. However, if I truly believed that, I would not be writing this post. While it’s not always the most comfortable thing to talk about, especially the darker events in life, I feel confident that there is a greater plan for all of us, that we simply cannot see. I grand design that we only get glimpses of. At the end of the day, even if I’m wrong it’s not a bad reason to keep going.