We humans hate the idea that things might happen randomly; we’re always looking for causes.  Probably dates back to the days when not knowing the cause of noises in the bushes could doom us to paying for lunch — with our lives.  So, if you hang around AA or NA (or any other “A”) for very long, you are bound to hear someone making the starry-eyed pronouncement, “Everything happens for a reason.”

You can’t really refute this bit of silliness, because obviously everything that happens has a precursor that can be called a “reason.”  However, reason usually implies planning, and that is emphatically not a part of the vast majority of things that occur in people’s lives.

The fact is, things happen because they happen.  We supply our own reasons.  We need to be sure that we’re reasoning clearly, or we can use this bit of pseudo-spirituality to justify all sorts of things.  And things worth doing rarely require justification.