“Everything happens for a reason…”
I hate these five words.
Do you know who says them most often?
White people.
Americans.
Citizens of first-world nations.
People who live in peace and security.
Benefactors of generational wealth.
The parents of happy, healthy children.
Children gifted college educations from parents.
People living with broad, strong economic safety nets
Children not suffering from cystic fibrosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and leukemia.
Try telling a starving child of war-torn Somalia that everything happens for a reason.
Trying telling the starving child’s mother that her child’s daily suffering and ultimate death from a lack of nutrition is happening for a reason.
Try telling a teenage girl kidnapped and sold into slavery for more than a decade that everything happens for a reason.
Try telling the parent of the Ukrainian infant who was killed in a Russian missile attack that everything happens for a reason.
Everything does not happen for a reason.
Everything happens because it happens, regardless of your hopes, wishes, or desires.
Thinking otherwise is self-centered, self-righteous, and awful. It also implies that unspeakable suffering is necessary, predestined, and even possibly deserved.
Stop it.
