“Everything happens for a reason,” “it’s meant to be,” “it is what it is.” These cliches express an increasingly popular form of Stoic fatalism. The underlying idea is that “Reality” just is a certain way, determined by God or physics. This superficially tough realism comforts us by absolving us of responsibility: whatever happens was bound to happen. But this makes it dangerous, argues Tracy Llanera. It leads to resigned inaction in the face of geopolitical strife, injustice, and our personal lives. Instead, we must recognize that there is no higher being responsible for us: we must take responsibility for each other and the world we live in. 

“Everything happens for a reason” is a popular salve for life’s nasty surprises. Many cling to it for existential comfort, or, better yet, the promise of a good ending.

Your house catches fire? Your dog’s stomach twists, and he dies mid-surgery at the age of five? A plane combusts mid-air while flying over the Pacific Ocean? Someone hacks into your bank account and withdraws your life savings? A new virus wipes out 7 million people in the twenty-first century? Two friends are diagnosed with cancer in less than two months? Your beloved wife of twenty years files for divorce? Trump is President of the United States of America? Again?

You know how it goes: everything happens for a reason.

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When life takes a savage turn, people are desperate for an explanation. And when the cause of misfortune boils down to bad luck, horrid behavior, or things simply running their course, some people want a fuller answer. They hanker for more justificatory flesh to grip, a deeper meaning or greater purpose behind the ordeal. They want reassurance that something better will come along, making the pain worth whatever valuable lesson it yields in the future.

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The idea that every little thing is set in stone is a morally misguided philosophy.

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Along with the religious flex “God has a plan for you,” the notion that all our suffering is predetermined, etched in ink by the cosmos or by a supernatural Being and preparing us for something better to come, is an answer all too easily embraced by many. Because, the very Christian story goes, there’s a blueprint to all this, and give or take it’s a good one and it always ends well. In times of trouble, it is a soothing belief paradigm. This mindset works to bring order to life’s chaos, promising that despite all the signs signaling the opposite, the kids are going to be alright. And the belief in a grand design to human existence can have real and good effects. It can speed up the process of reconciling with our grief, enabling us to pick up the pieces of the life we have left. It can serve, in other words, as the official permission to move on (whether this is a genuine road to recovery is case-by-case and harder to answer).