Bad Things Happen For a Reason

[Outright Villainy]

No, I don't think bad things happen for a reason.

I don't get overtly negative about it either though, I think it's healthier to try and focus on the positive, or appreciate what I have.

I've also been exceedingly fucking lucky in life, all things considered.

 

[s0denone]

Snipped

Put a little harshly, but I can agree with the overarching sentiment: Taking your own sweet life, and saying "everything happens for a reason lols. when my gran died it was all alright because i got more in contact with others hehe" is EXTREMELY ignorant and PISSES ALL OVER people who have had ACTUAL BAD SHIT HAPPEN.

Some tragic shit has happened to me. Did any of it happen for good reason? NO.
Did any of it have some unforseen good/cool consequence(s)? FUCK NO.

I am angered by topics such as these.
Isn't the forum 13+?
Give me a break!

 

[Dags90]

What about all the bad stuff that happens for awful reasons?

Like kids who get beaten because their parents had a bad day at work. There's a clear reason for it, and it isn't good.

 

[loc978]

Of course. Everything happens for a reason. The reason for a little girl getting stabbed is in the mind of the stabber. Probably something to do with pent-up hatred or simple psychosis and a desire to see the little girl bleed.

...
But seriously, the rhetoric "everything happens for a reason" is a misrepresentation of language. I guess "higher purpose" takes too long to say. Do I think there's some driving force behind every act anyone commits leading toward some grand purpose? No. No I don't.

 

[RobCoxxy]

When God gives you lemons you FIND A NEW GOD!

 

[burningdragoon]

When God gives you lemons you FIND A NEW GOD!

Godberry, King of the Juice!

Ok, so... sometimes bad things lead to good things, sure. Not always. and sometimes it does but it's not clear.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in God and all, but if you try to convince people of something like that, you're bound to piss off a good amount of people (which has happened here it seems).

 

[Faladorian]

so i was watching the episode of 'Scrubs' where Laverne (spelling fail probably) and Dr.Cox are arguing whether bad things happen for a reason when a little girl is stabbed.

and it got me thinking, they actually do, at least in my eyes anyway. so i started to think back to some recent events that were 'bad' in a sense and how good things had actually come out of them, one being my driving test was cancelled due to "unforeseen circumstances", this made me mad as i had waited a month for this, so i call them up and they say i can have it 5 days earlier than the original which was great

a more 'serious' event was when my gran died of cancer i realised i didnt spend much time with her, so i have started spending more time talking to long distance relatives on the phone and visiting relatives that live nearby, i wouldnt have really done this without the death of my gran!

so my question is, what events in your life that initially were bad, have led to something good?

EDIT: i suppose it just comes down to the way you look at life

Yeah, you're right! Like when Haiti was hit with an earthquake, it was all better when they got hit by a hurricane.

I'm not buying it. Bad things happen because shit happens. It's not some fate crap, and they are not always followed by good things.

OT: Not really. I usually think things through to the point where I know something good will come out of a situation, so it's a good situation. Take for example the divorce of my parents. Normally people are all broken up about it, I was screaming at my dad to get the hell out. I wanted it, I needed it. I would consider the divorce of my parents to be a positive thing.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I say Yes and No. But really, it's more like "Sometimes a bad thing might lead to good later, surprisingly"

For me, My college advisors lied to me and withheld information, preventing me from going into computer science (which I really wanted), and leading me to get a degree in something I sucked at.

Well, I ended up working for a year, and although it sucked, I now am doing pretty well financially. Plus, I met a REALLY good friend when I eventually came BACK to college to do the CompSci (after finding out I actually could go into it), and then after talking to a GOOD advisor, I got right into university, and due to the timing of it all, I then met my girlfriend, who is totally freakin' awesome.

So yeah, I wasted 3 years of my life, but I matured a bit, I met an awesome friend, and I met an amazing girl. Fair enough trade, I guess. XD

 

[similar.squirrel]

There is no 'reason'. Bad things just happen, and if you learn something positive from the experience, so be it. Teleology on a personal level comes across as incredibly arrogant.

Unless, of course, you're of a religious persuasion, in which case an all-seeing and benevolent deity is screwing with you in order to see whether you should suffer eternal torment. Which is also nifty.

 

[DkryptX3]

Waiting for something good to come out of plenty of bad events... I honestly see good things happen to bad people because they go after what they want without caring about anyone else, giving them a huge advantage.

 

[Wintermoot]

me getting bullied led me too leaving my school.
The good thing is that I got transfered to a school where the teacher care about their students

 

[Mnemophage]

In a sense, yes, bad things happen for a reason, in that all things have at least one cause. These are the things I find it crucial to study, so as not to waste a perfectly healthy disaster. Everything should be in some way a learning experience.

But this sentiment is more typically connected with a sense of the mystical, as in, someone or something intended this to be a lesson to me. This helps in dealing with the traumatic nature of whatever we're going through, but ultimately skews our perspective. If you haven't been able to guess yet, I'm undecided on the whole divinity issue - while I don't think I'm ready to believe that the Great Mystery has a direct, personal hand in my life, some of the sheer improbability of my existence to this point can't help but make me wonder.

Whether you believe in making the best of all situations, or that this was intended to better you somehow, the main point is this: you can't just let misfortune defeat you, but assume a lesson from everything.

 

[Ca3zar416]

I've always been of the belief that in the end the ruling forces of the world are chaos and chance. I've believed that the same was true for good and bad things. There isn't really a reason for anything to happen. Things just are. Unfortunately something bad has happened recently in my life. A friend of mine suddenly and unexpectedly met an untimely end. Truthfully I really can't see any reason that this happened and I also don't care. I would much rather see my friend alive and laughing as he always did again than learn any lesson. It just isn't worth it.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

While it's great to see the silver lining in things, bad things don't happen for a reason. Sometimes, there's an added bonus to a bad thing that makes you cope better, or learn a lesson, or improves your life. That doesn't mean it's set up that way, that just makes you lucky.

I went through a really shitty summer relationship-wise, but that left me single this year, when I met someone I now love very much. So, yeah, I've seen the bright side of shit too- and it is bright indeed.

 

[Wharrgarble]

I buy more into the "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger" argument. I don't think anything bad ever happens for a reason... It just happens. That's a part of life, you sometimes get good and you sometimes get bad. It's how you handle whatever comes your way that matters.

 

[rubinigosa]

Well if someone can give me a situation where a bad thing turned into something good without personal opinions then I may reconsider my following statement...Bullshit,bad things happen because it just does it is not going to change into something good just because you think so but because you form opinions baste on that event.
"That which does not kill you makes you stronger."-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Summarizes this well.

 

[Torrasque]

Originally, I was going to say "you're a fucking idiot", but you actually support your outrageous argument with some good points.

And yes, "bad things" are only bad if you think of them as bad things.
A relative dying from cancer may suck because they are dead (duh), but they are no longer in pain.

Thats the only example I'll get into, because every other example I can think of will offend some people.
It is extremely hard to weigh the good you receive from an action against the bad you must do to carry out that action (at least in real life), and when human lives are the currency, that difficulty just gets astronomically worse.

Edit:
I think bad things happen for a reason, because if there was no reason, then they wouldn't happen.
Even if that reason is: "Why did you kill those people?" 'Because I felt like it'
I'm not saying that bad things happen for a GOOD reason, just that they have some reason.

 

[Nick Angelici]

cant think of one, life just sucks like that. bad shit happens, and no one cares, not too mention that a lot of the time bad stuff happens because of Stupid causes. and usually, nothing better happens afterwords

 

[sylekage]

Bad things happen. Whether it be for a legitimate reason, or just to be bad. Most of the time bad things happen just because they happen, and if some good comes out of it, give it time, it'll go back to bad quite soon.

 

[Reptiloid]

There's no way to justify stabbing a loli. That being said, I'm personally a follower of the "stuff happens" theory.