Everything happens for a reason.

[Twist_U_Up]

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, if they be events, illnesses or relationships, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere.

If someone hurts you, betrays you , or breaks you heart, forgive them. For they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to who you open your heart to.

If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.

Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.

Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either.

You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it.

[Echo In Light]

1. Good post

[RFKJrNews]

4. Good taste in sig line photos, too

Ah...I see there are other Bill Hicks fans lurking among us in the DU Universe.

Greetings from Austin, TX!! (aka "Bill-Ville")

[Echo In Light]

21. His voice is missed

[RFKJrNews]

33. Very sorely missed

God, don't we all wish Bill was still around to put things in perspective?

Crazy thing is, the stuff he was ranting about 15 years ago is more relevant today than it even was back then.

same shit, different decade.

[Echo In Light]

44. True. Sadly, I suspect there are more deaf ears today re his "crazy" ideas

Bill was once beaten after a show, causing a broken leg, by some haters who didn't like him preaching his "crazy" liberal views. One can see how a hateful groupthink situation could easily lead to such a confrontation.

[frogcycle]

2. to the contrary

much of what happens is by chance

illness, car accidents, muggings... suggesting there is some grand "reason" behind bad things happening to good people is absurd to the extreme.

Yes, "tell yourself you are a good individual and believe in yourself," by all means. But if a big pile of shit falls out of the sky and lands on you, don't think somehow it had a purpose, just do what Joe Biden's dad told him - GET UP! and get on with life. Rationalizing that it had meaning is pointless.

Yes, "You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it."

The people who fled Cambodia in boats with only the clothes on their backs did that; they came here and made new lives; many are successful businessmen and women now. That message is a powerful one. Just don't tell yourself that the shit that happened to you was intentionally done to you by some mysterious power.

[zanne]

9. I have to agree, frogcycle.

I used to think people said that because they couldn't think of anything else to say, but I guess alot of people believe it. You'd have to believe in a God who dispenses justice on Earth to believe in that. I haven't seen that happen.

[renate]

38. whether or not that's true...

Anyone who says that to a recently bereaved or currently suffering person is just mean.

Well, okay, maybe not mean. But unthinking. They probably do mean well.

It may be true that everything happens for a reason (I certainly believe that on this earthly plane we can't see what's going on behind the scenes or why), but that is not exactly comforting to someone in the throes of grief or loss.

To me, it's like people who are spared a tragedy (e.g., those who escaped from the WTC on 9-11) saying "There but for the grace of God go I." So, God chose certain wonderful people to die horrifically, but not others? That would make God a big jerk.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

11. Things happen and then we rationalize the reasons why

We must be hard-wired to do so. It's almost irresistible. I guess it's easier to live with than accepting that existence is filled with cruel caprice. But it's a mug's game, and con men have been playing the saps with it since time began.

It's true we learn things from bad experiences. But we don't even all learn the same thing. Some learn patience, humility and wisdom. Others learn paranoia, vengeance and self-doubt.

Things happen. Life goes on.

[nancyr]

17. I agree with you.

Things happen, period.

[Lorien]

19. I agree . I think that many need to believe that everything happens for a

reason because they can't deal with uncertainty, or the possibility that their lives aren't truly meaningful or significant.Hundreds of millions are born, live lives of quiet desperation, then die without having any lasting impact on the people around them. What is the meaning behind the horrors that have happened to the people of Darfur? Why was our family friend Henry captured by the Nazis when he was seven years old? What divine plan was behind the Nazis murder of Henry's entire family? Henry was freed and brought to America, but he has suffered from severe bouts of depression ever since. He was never able to marry and have a family of his own-and now he's in his 70s. Why was it important that a human being suffer for nearly 70 years? Where's the reasoning behind it all? I don't see it. Maybe sometimes shit just happens.

[ldf]

63. you make too much sense

if all this happens for a reason? then g*d is one sick mofo...

good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people.

very few deserve what they get.

and you have beautiful children!

[piedmont]

34. Amen. nt

[uppityperson]

35. How you react is what you can control.

And even then your choices can be very limited. How you emotionally react can be all you have control over. And even then, accepting and working with what choices you have, sometimes there are no positive ones available. But the choice of how to emotionally react remains personal.

[Ilsa]

3. I don't buy that anymore.

What did my son do to deserve autism? i'm 38 years older than him, and I don't expect to be around when he is old and needs protecting from the soul-less Bushes of this world. He deserved better than that. I could go on and on.

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. They say that if someone hurts you, respond with love.

I can tell you that this is an extremely difficult lesson, but it keeps me from devolving into anger and fighting. There must be wisdom there, so I'm pursuing it. It's helping me build a better -internal- future, if anything.

More extreme tests to come...

[I Have A Dream]

6. Yes, this is really difficult to do, but it helps to not continue to be "bound"...

to them. I think that when we hold onto resentment towards people, we continue to be affected by them. The last thing that I want is that. Cut the ties that bind us to them by not having an emotional attachment to them.

My goal is forgiveness in such situations. Responding with love is even one step further. Good for you, Peake. :)

[I Have A Dream]

7. Thank you for this inspirational post, Twist_U_Up. K&R!

:)

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

8. Well, I Have Always Believed That Everything Happens For A Reason...

...Problem is, no one ever said it had to be a good one.

[TahitiNut]

26. Well, that's OUR 'job.'

It's "Why We're Here" ... to provide the 'Passion.' When I think of the "Big Bang" - the Beginning of the Universe - I think of it as the schism/split of 'nothing' (zero) into 'something' and 'antisomething' (+1 and -1). The net of All is still zero, but it was separated ... the Original Yin and Yang.

But that's still not 'Everything.' Something's missing in my inventory. I figure that's 'Caring' (passion) ... for there is something incomplete about having a Yin and a Yang unless the distinction (separation) is somehow Meaningful ... to SomeOne. So, I figure that's Our Job ... to Care. We get (free will) to Choose - to Create Meaning. Without that Meaning, the Universe cannot Exist.

After all ... that's really what the Meaning of 'Is' is.

:shrug: O8)

The transcendent sound of the Universe is ... laughter.

[Grateful for Hope]

10. Excellent post, Twist!

Thank you for posting it!

[babydollhead]

14. There is nothing, nowhere, neither in heaven ,or on earth,

that can make the true untrue or the untrue true...this was found in someones cell after they were executed. It saves me.

[watercolors]

12. Thank you for reminding me

We are going thru a rough time with our granddaughters illness. over two months of wrong diagnosis and incompetent doctors. Finally there is light ahead and hopefully problem will be taken care of very soon! A new and very competent doc, and he saw the problem immediately. We learned thru this experience that we don;t rely on the system, get in there and do all the research you can.

[Orsino]

13. Even * is teaching us to be cautious...

...about electing spoiled, arrogant, elitist, rich men.

I'm not going to start forgiving him until he shows even the tiniest bit of remorse, but we can still respond to him with love. Tough love, preferably of the impeaching kind, that removes him from the power he can't be trusted with rather than merely seeking to punish.

I'm just as worried, however, about those in power who are nominally on our side, yet who pretend not to notice the magnitude of his crimes, which are therefore also their crimes.

[OneBlueSky]

15. bookmarked to remind me of some universal truths that are sometimes easy to forget . . . n/t

.

[Annces]

16. Thanks for the thoughts n/t

[Lex]

18. I don't believe someone else's illness or death is a "test" for me.

In fact, I don't believe any of my illnesses or hard times are a "test" for me.

There's a quote from a song that's probably most like what I believe:

"Whatever has happened to anyone else
Could happen to you and to me
And the end of my youth was the possible truth
That it all happens randomly"

[bettyellen]

24. i know, it's totally egocentric and childish to think so. what pablum.

[Toots]

20. I like your rationale

I also believe you are the captain of your destiny whether on a conscious level or not..."Life is how you make it"

[MedleyMisty]

22. There are no reasons

I understand why my "fate" is what it is. Pure random probability and the choices and actions of myself and others. And I don't mean the neocon social Darwinist definition of "choice" and "personal responsibility" where you can be born to poor parents and magically become a billionaire by the time you're 40 and you are obviously a horrible person if you're not, but just choices and actions that are influenced by what random probability brings your way and that can have random unpredictable effects. Obviously some effects are predictable - like if you decide to bomb a country, you are going to kill people. And if your house is bombed and your family dies and you lose a limb or two, that's not a test or message from a supernatural being. That's the randomized (in the sense of it destroying your house and not harming others around your house) consequence of the decisions of other humans.

I like to think of existence as a probability wave that is constantly being collapsed by many billions of observers. I only dabble in physics so I'm sorry if the terminology isn't perfect but hopefully you get the idea.

Okay, like, my father died of a heart attack when I had just turned seven. I didn't think that some supernatural being had taken him away from me - but then I had read the Children's Bible and it gave me this instinctual wrong feeling and then at six I learned about dinosaurs and compared that to the Genesis creation myth and that was it for me - atheist4lyfe, dude.

I stood at his casket and thought, "Daddy, why did you smoke?" I'd heard that the autopsy showed that he was beginning to develop emphysema and I was pretty sure that wouldn't have helped matters.

I'm not saying it was his fault - he grew up in rural North Carolina in the forties and fifties. I imagine that there weren't that many people who didn't smoke around here back then and there wasn't as much knowledge about the health problems caused by smoking. And he was the coolest person who ever existed with the possible exception of my husband. But still - the heart attack was a natural occurence with many random events and decisions influenced by random events preceding it. It wasn't a reward or a punishment for anything and no one deserved it and it wasn't a blessing in disguise and it wasn't some supernatural being calling my father home and it had no greater meaning. It was just a random heart attack.

I don't get the need for some greater meaning. It's enough for me to look at the sky and the trees and the grass. Existence is beautiful and good and true without having to add anything to it.

[Echo In Light]

23. It's one of those things that can't be explained away rationally

...er, of course, there are those who insist that the theory they personally subscribe to is absolute truth to the exclusion of all else ... but I usually tend to disavow such thinking if it stems from someone who uses it to bolster their own ego and competitive pride.

It's like faith, antithesis of logic. Either or? Tough nut. Personally, I've experienced enough incidents, and am aware of others, where the notion of it all randomly occurring within a vacuum just didn't/couldn't jive with my intuition at all. I do believe in some sort of underlying connection within our lives...many aspects of existence are largely illusory, and based around the concept of enough people believing in it/common consensus ... but who knows ... I try to keep an open mind. As the adage goes, truth is stranger than fiction.

[bettyellen]

25. i've been told dementia happens to people who were cruel + responded: what a sad fate for you!

i have no sympathy for the ignorant. :puke:

what a crock of shit. "happens for a reason" is as often as not, blame the victim, or spinning whatever fairytale it takes to make survivors feel better. delusional to the max. childish tripe. embarrassing to see here.
:puke:

[Edweird]

64. You nailed it. "blame the victim"

You're poor for a reason.
You're sick for a reason.
You were raped for a reason.
You were robbed for a reason.
You were disabled by a drunk driver for a reason.
on and on.....

All because you somehow "deserve" it.

[pitohui]

27. oh what a pant load

the 80s are over and it didn't work then

remember all those people visualizing whirled peas? notice all the whirled peas around? i rest my case

positive thinking and self brain washing is a piss pitiful substitute for action, but if you want to indulge in it and make yourself ineffective, you are welcome to join shirley macclaine on the shelf with the other irelevants

people who don't know about randomness, luck, etc. need to go back to school and retake some basic math and probability, they are innumerate and in a way that is not only politically insulting (if something bad happens to you it's because you thought the bad thought and didn't properly create your own life) but also in a way that is just plain intellectually moronic

before you tell me how to create my own life, show some evidence that you can even create your own life well enough to add two plus two

signed, proud member of the reality based universe

[Realityhack]

28. In the words of Billy Madison's principle

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.
Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.

[RainDog]

29. oops! I call bullshit!

that belief.. everything happens for a reason, is right up there with eclipses meaning god wants a human sacrifice.

sorry, but this sort of thing irks me right up there with this sort of kitsche:



I think I'd better log off now. I'm not in my paint-by-numbers sad clown mood. Or maybe I posted this so that you could love me while I told you that the thought process I mention above is not only simplistic, it is poor reasoning and may be very hurtful because it's sugar-coated blame.

nothing personal about this... I don't have any idea who you are. however, I cannot not comment on something like this because these canards are constantly tossed out. So I'm chewing on this bone. I know you didn't invent this thought yourself. You just adopted it.

[PassingFair]

30. Shit happens.

I subscribe to the chaos theory.

You can't REALLY "create your own reality" you know.....

You do your best and hope you don't get the cosmic SMACK DOWN.

Bad things happen to good people all the time.

[walldude]

31. Create your own life and then go out and live it

Thank you Tony Robbins... are tapes and DVD's available outside?

[Lex]

32. We take credit cards!

nt

[undergroundpanther]

36. I lost faith in things happen for reasons long ago

Gnostics recognized "the fundamentally corrupt character of all human enterprises and institutions: time, history, powers,states, religions, races, nations..." (The Gnostics, p. 24) Corruption occurs, not because we make errors, but because the errors we make go uncorrected and extrapolate beyond the scale of correction. Lacarriere says that Gnostics reached this conclusion “out of rational observation of the natural world and human behavior.” Ultimately, they asserted the “contention that all power – whatever kind it may be – is a source of alienation... All institutions, laws, religions, churches and powers are nothing but a sham and a trap, the perpetuation of an age-old deception.” (p. 28-29) This may seem like a dark view of human affairs, but given the evidence of history (not to mention current events), it cannot be said to be unfair or exaggerated.



I cannot"create my own reality" by wishing real hard or' making it just happen'.Motivational posters never did do much for me.

Books like "a course in miracles" are toxic to my spirit because the books are manipulative,like""the secret" .These books impose claims about reality that just are NOT TRUE.

Like,if I can't make my life rosy by thinking happy thoughts hard enough and still my body breaks well it's all my fault, I couldn't fake my way to a new reality. I hate those kinds of mind fuck games the new age light-worker ,mentality plays. To me, it's sick,especially dangerous for anyone who does not cope with bad stuff life slings around by telling themselves lies to facilitate denial and selective perceptions..

If my happy thoughts could really change reality..Immediately the war in Iraq would be over, Bush would have never been born,All psychopaths authoritarians and narcissists would not exist,and life would not have to prey upon the weaker forms of life to live and die anyway.Life would not be LIKE IT IS. If I could go back to MY source there would be no more incompatibility.

If I could control my reality I wouldn't be here in this cruel, capricious world stuck in this frail fleshy limited body, stuck in this life I did not choose. I would not have grown up with the parental fuckups I got,I wouldn't be poor,a human, or gendered..

I would be in a paradise of my own making.



Tell me if everything has a reason to happen why does evil exist and why does a benevolent force think teaching spirits 'lessons' about love are best taught through inflicting trauma,misfortune,suffering, and pain? Isn't that a little abusive,and sickening to you?

If all is good, and evil does not exist, tell me WHY we allegedly are "ascending" ? Ascension implies we are moving away from something moving up and away from.. Could it be getting away from evil IS ascending away from something incompatible with spirit like evil? And this means Evil is not from the same force or the same spiritual source as goodness comes from.That "light" that you allegedly are that you ascending to implies darkness. Is light darkness? Yes or no? ? Could it be duality exists as long as consciousness and spirit are trapped here in materiality that drags it down into evil?

Why do little babies and kids too often get raped by full grown adults in this world? What is the"reasons" for it? Don't give me blame the victim excuses like they "chose" it. That is just sickening.

Why do Gazelles die to feed lion cubs? And they both grow up to die anyway? Where is the reason in that? Are Gazelles not loving enough or something?Gazelles got this "karma" and to get out they must accept being lion food? Where is reason in that? There ain't none.

For assuming a reason assumes a plan if there is a plan there is a planner if the planner inflicts so much trauma well I wanna kick that planners ass for the abuse it has done to every creature stuck here.

There is no for this shitty world. The only way I can tolerate the concept of this shit being"reasonable" is to admit... Our reality is flawed , it's a half made mistake ,a jail for the spirits,run by a blind abusive force that has a huge ego and likes making spirits suffer for no reason other than it can.. And for spirit beings trapped in matter this IS NOT home.

http://ponerology.blogspot.com/

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Tell that to the five year old I declared years ago

She was run over by dad, tragic accident... her skull was caved in

Tell that to the survivors of the holocaust.

No, they don't happen for a reason, shit happens... and how you deal with it tells you how strong you are as an individual

If you need to believe this, more power to you... but in reality things happen.. randomly and does not matter how good or evil you are.

[Echo In Light]

39. An aside: Jung on synchronization {meaningful coincidences and the collective unconscious}

"Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer." ~ Carl Jung

I find this very interesting. I suspect many would disavow it as "psycho babble," but for anyone else, some sources to browse.

http://www.plim.org/Synchro2.html

http://www.psychovision.ch/synw/synchronicity_jung.htm

http://www.strangemag.com/mysteryofchance.html

http://www.crystalinks.com/jung.html

[RainDog]

59. jung? oh please

since jung and freud, many people in the field of psychology have moved beyond their "just so" stories to look at concepts of cognition, or how we perceive experience and lay meaning over it. you would do well to get beyond the "women who run with the wolves" crapola and use your critical thinking skills to ask if, because you want to believe the just so stories, you find patterns - by ignoring things that don't validate your pov, for instance.

it is highly offensive for people who have experienced great tragedies to hear such stupid fluff written as tho it were sage wisdom. it's not.

you would do well to get beyond victorian era thinking (i.e. Freud and Jung) and look into how ppl have tried to understand tragedy in real terms. that's where existentialism came from. a theory of existence that could have any validity after the holocaust.

read Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. He was a auschwitz survivor who had to find meaning after his experiences. after the experience of living in a place where there was no god.

It is repulsive to see such superficial explanations in the face of such tragedy. I know someone whose child was kidnapped, murdered and left to rot. this person had been a very religious person before this experience. you know what she learned from that experience? in churches, etc. the bromide there is also that "god won't give you anything you can't handle." She said that's bullshit.

how can someone make such a claim anyway? If you can't handle it, does that mean you are unworthy because of a soul-crushing experience?

please stop trying to defend the indefensible.

[cgrindley]

40. Mostly wrong, but everything up to a point does has a determinable causality

that point being at the quantum level. On some other points, though, you're wrong:


a) if someone hurts you. cut them out of your life. never forgive anyone for the injustices they have perpetrated against you.

b) if someone loves you... they might be a crazy stalker. you don't have to love your crazy stalker.

c) some days don't count. we're not always in some wild movie in our heads. some days just drift by without giving us any useful lessons or poignant moments or opportunities for informed introspection... sometimes we're just drunk off our asses playing video games

d) only have pride in yourself and your life if you've done something useful or important... the big problem with America is that everyone always gets a participation trophy. Well... this is just absurd.... get something done... and if it really is amazing... (eg graduating high school is NOT amazing, learning to play piano is NOT amazing, going a year without crashing a car is NOT amazing) if you do something amazing, then feel good about yourself

e) you cannot make your life anything you wish. you cannot be king of England. for the most part, you cannot be president. for 99% of people, their lives are going to be what their lives were going to be based on genetics, parental incomes, parental education, exposure to different cultural environments, and so on. for every one person who is the first in their family to go to college, there are a whole bunch who keep up the trend of NOT going to college. for every daughter of blue collar America who ends up President of a Fortune 500 firm, there are tens of millions who don't.

[Echo In Light]

42. By that postulation, being the "president of a Fortune 500 firm" is a good thing

I perceive the OP's position to be largely philosophical ... not so much attempting to scientifically prove/disprove a hypothesis, which seems to be the slant of many who responded. And if you notice, many from that camp are quick to belittle and use personal attacks ... which again, speaks to prevailing ideologies.

[cgrindley]

45. It is... Bill Gates has done 5000 times the good that Edwards has done for example

With tremendous wealth comes the power and ability to create positive change--unless you're a total dickhead like the people who ran Enron or Worldcom, but a CEO doesn't have to be one of those assholes.

[Echo In Light]

46. That personal variables are real and present is a given. What I find suspect is...

To recommend abiding the prevailing ideologies of our time, which prompts people to equate the intrinsic worth of human life in terms of $ ... which, from what I've experienced, is based in and largely driven by want of attaining social status, greed and so forth, not altruism. I'm not saying there aren't incredibly wealthy people who don't use their position to benefit humanity ... just saying there are many contrary examples, even within the daily round of life for the average person.

[cgrindley]

47. Well... yeah social status, wealth and altruism taken together are tokens of success

and intrinsic value. A wealthy, well-respected and generous person should be considered successful.

[Echo In Light]

48. I suspect you're avoiding the point I'm making...however, yes, "generosity" is crucial

[cgrindley]

49. Actually, that's not true either... technically Edward Teller was "successful"

he was probably the least generous human being to ever live.

[Echo In Light]

50. ???...I'm not making the point of Edwards' success or generosity

[cgrindley]

51. I've kind of lost the original idea... wasn't it that CEO's aren't a priori successful?

maybe they are... I don't know anymore. Perhaps the problem is coming from the idea that success is a uniformly positive and beneficial state. I'm pretty successful, but I'm an utterly insufferable tool.

[Echo In Light]

52. I'm addressing prevailing notions of what constitutes "success," and why, on what terms, etc

[cgrindley]

54. Well... what precisely does "success" mean to you? To me...

it means achieving pre-eminence in a given field or occupation, contributing significantly and lastingly more than the average person to global culture, knowledge or well-being... and, I guess, pre-eminence in a given field may actually at times be at odds with making a significant and lasting contribution to global culture.

[Echo In Light]

55. It is subjective as its meaning and implications vary. What I see as problematic in modern society..

Is the wholesale promotion of the pursuit of money and social status, to the exclusion of all else, while the phenomenon is simultaneously replete with its own built in lip-service defense mechanism/propaganda that serves to disguise reality with Orwellian semantics.

[cgrindley]

57. I don't think that being rich = being successful

lottery winners can be rich... mobsters can be rich... personal injury lawyers can be rich

[RedCappedBandit]

41. Keep telling yourself that..

if it makes you feel better. I don't buy into fairy tales.

[RainDog]

43. this sort of bromide does not bear scrutiny

and yet people choose to cling to this absurd idea, as noted here.

I wonder... okay, fundies say 6 million jews were murdered in Nazi germany so that christ could return... because Israel needed to be a state, and that only happened because of the holocaust. so, the christian god is so evil it takes 6 million human sacrifices to do something? fundies are so blood thirsty and full of a death wish for us all that they can celebrate the murder of 6 million because their god is a god of love?

but what about the 5 million gypsies, homosexuals, mentally retarded, and other "inferior" humans who were exterminated along with the jews? were they just "also rans" (more like "also murdereds") whose deaths were for a purpose... to... ummm... and...

I bet those mentally retarded people were born that way so that they could be murdered by Hitler, right? If my son had been born there, he could well have been one of those murdered. Because he wasn't means...

And when you're a little girl who is being fucked by your stepdaddy every night after your mother passes out drunk, that happens for a reason, too, so that you can grow up and marry an asshole who molests your kid while you pass out drunk?

the world works in mysterious ways.

[Edweird]

53. Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit

I was betrayed and abused by the very people that were supposed to protect me. I tried to forgive and move on and guess what? I got betrayed AGAIN! Thanks for trying to make light of people that have had really fucked up lives with your trite greeting card crap. Maybe rose colored lenses are the prescription for YOUR world, but not mine.

[Echo In Light]

56. Do you honestly believe the OP is attempting to trivialize the plight of others? I don't

Yet it seems as though many who STRONGLY disagree with the various sentiments immediately take on this tone. Some of the responses are dripping with anger/hostility.

[Edweird]

58. Ok, then, let me break it down for you...

"If someone hurts you, betrays you , or breaks you heart, forgive them. For they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to who you open your heart to."
Yeah, when my junkie mom was selling what meager possessions I had as a child to support her habit, what exactly was the lesson?
When my 6'2" 280lb dad dealt with EVERYTHING with violence, what exactly was the lesson?
I had no choice who my family was. I had no control over anything and DID NOT DESERVE what happened.
So, yeah, I kinda get worked up when I encounter people that seem to suggest that I somehow brought my horrific childhood on myself because I didn't know "the importance of being cautious to who you open your heart to." Like I went hungry as a child because of that (there was always money for drugs and cigarrettes, but not luxuries like FOOD!)
And believe it or not, my post is nowhere near as hostile now as my first draft.

[bettyellen]

61. well anyone who's actually had horrible things happen randomly to them are fed up with hearing

everyone else rationalize it, especially from a safe distance. it is very insulting, and ignorant and way too common.

[Edweird]

62. I can only speak for myself.

It makes my blood boil.

Fuck them and their neo-christian bullshit.

I didn't deserve it, and neither did my little sister.

[bettyellen]

65. it betrays their selfish need to make shit "about them" too.

totally fucking clueless, grrrr.
what we learned in picking up the pieces. if we did, is totally fucking beside the point. ugh!

[dysfunctional press]

60. what a load.

:eyes:
"Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck."
that's just plain silly- i don't even know where to begin.

"If someone hurts you, betrays you , or breaks you heart, forgive them. For they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to who you open your heart to."
umm-how does a mugger teach you those things, exactly?
and i'm really glad that in the second world war, we had patton instead of you.

"You can make of your life anything you wish." -tell that to the color-blind kid who wants to be a fighter pilot.