Everything happens for a reason

When something bad happens, the mind cries out for answers: why did this happen? What does it mean? Unfortunately the mind also provides answers. Sadly, the answers that it provides are generally wrong and not very useful.

I have learned that there are many questions that I cannot answer, but these two I can: everything happens for a reason (many reasons, actually); we can choose (some of) our reasons, and our lives depends on which ones we choose. Everything may mean something different to every different person (and sometimes can mean many things to the same person); we decide at least some of those meanings and our lives depend on what we decide.

Except in matters of science, where reasons can be verified with some certainty, the best reasons and the best meanings are not the "truest" ones but the most useful ones. Indeed "truest" has no real meaning when you can not subject a statement to a test, but "useful" does.

So if something bad happens to you, then among the best reasons I can offer to you (and I encourage you to accept) is: "This happened so that you can learn from it." It's as true as you can make it, and it's as useful as any reason can be. If you want to know what it means when something bad happens I suggest the meta-meaning: "It means what you make it mean. And if you learn something worth valuing from it that will then be its meaning."

I do not believe that things happen because of the workings of Karma or fate. Perhaps it's true, but it's fairly useless to me. I do believe that things happen to us because of chains of causality rooted in the laws of physics: place yourself in front of a speeding car a few microseconds before it reaches you, and I guarantee you will get hit, no Karma about it, and placing yourself there is a good reason to explain what happened. But that's also a fairly useless explanation.

What if someone says something hurtful to you? Or what if you get an illness or suffer from some physical condition? Physics does not even provide a good explanation except at a uselessly abstract level ("Your cancer, Mr. Johnson, is due to a cell's improper division making it malignant."). My answer for myself, and the one that I recommend to you is: "Whatever happened happened (among other reasons) so that you can learn something from it." That's the one to keep in mind. And it will be both true and useful if you will it so.

Recently I've had a few setbacks (nothing terminal that I know of--and good things as well) and unpleasant things have happened to friends of mine (and good things). Why did these things happen and what do they mean? As always there are many reasons, but one reason for me is so that I could think this through and write this down.

These have been useful beliefs for a good part of my life. It has helped me to remind myself of them and to remind myself that I always have a choice about what I believe.

I hope it encourages you to consider it (and try it) if you have not previously heard it; or it convinces you if it makes enough sense; or reminds you if you know it already.

Your duty to be happy. Enjoy it!

I picked this up in a book of quotations and wrote down some of the ones that I liked, drafted this and let it sit in my drafts folder waiting for the right time. And now, at the urging of Z3, it's the right time.

Helen Keller who was the world's most famous blind, deaf, and dumb kid until Tommy the pinball wizard came along, had every reason to not be happy. Let's face it: life screwed her. But she says:

If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.

I'll repeat the salient point:

I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy,

Being happy is easy for some people, and if it is a duty, they carry it out without difficulty. Most of them don't know, or don't think about the fact that sooner or later the sun will go cold and freeze the earth, or go nova and burn all to cinders, and no matter what the universe will suffer heat death and that means (as far as we know) that no matter what we do, everything is ultimately going to turn to shit. Some people are happy because they are born with a nervous system that allows them to be aware of these and other unpleasant realities and dismiss them.

But some of us have to work hard to be happy, and knowing that it's a duty, a solemn responsibility might help.

I came to this conclusion late in life, in fact after I had already taken responsibility and decided that I needed to do something about my life. If there is a turning point in my "quest for the good life" it's when I realized what I had to do in order to enjoy it.

Enjoying

Most people think that enjoying an experience means taking joy from the experience. I realized that enjoying could mean something different: putting joy into it. If you can learn to en-joy things, but put joy into things, then you can take joy from whatever goes on.

Consider word origins. The prefix en- is used in the following ways:

definition:	for example:
put into or on	engulf, enmesh
bring into the condition of	enlighten, embitter
intensification	entangle, enrage

So en-joy can mean: to put into joy; to bring into the condition of joy. to intensify joy. In other words, enjoy doesn't mean you take away joy (though you could). It's something you can bring, put in, intensify. Enjoying is an act of creation--not an act of consumption.

It's possible to be the beneficiary of a lot of joy you did not create, and that's not a bad thing. At the U2 concert I went to last year, 85,000 people showed up with their joy. And so did I. We filled that stadium with our joy. And we all magically walked away with more joy than we started with. Gogol Bordello routinely does that for me as well.

Now you might be able to actually enjoy something when you had no hand in bringing the joy, or putting the joy in, or intensifying the joy, but it's a riskier bet than if you come with your own joy. And if instead of bringing joy you bring suspicion, hurt, wariness, blame, worry, or just plain old conservatism, there's good odds that you're not going to enjoy what happens. How can you?

I learned this lesson a couple of years ago, and got myself to enjoying everything that happened. Even things that kind of sucked can be enjoyed. You're really into enjoyment when you can say: "I never threw up on a boat before! That was interesting!" Or "I've never had burnt waffles before, so how do I know I won't enjoy them." That's my hero.

Enjoying things makes life better--more enjoyable, you might say. It makes it better for you--and as a side benefit for everyone around you. It's not just a pleasure, though. I believe in what Helen Keller says. It's a duty. If everyone made it their job to bring joy to every occasion what a great world we would have.

I believe that "enjoy-ment" is a skill. You get enjoyment when you put the effort in. When you don't, you might bet lucky, or out might get unlucky. You've let it go out of your hands.

Enjoyment is a teachable skill. And if someone cares to work at it, it's a learnable skill. Some people are born with a natural ability to enjoy--they can get better, And most important, they can inspire others--as I am inspired right now.

Others find it harder. They have to work hard to be any good at all. I was a pretty miserable kid, but I learned over years to enjoy many things--and ultimately (before I forgot how important it was) I learned how to deliberately and diligently enjoy every thing. Right now I'm enjoying writing this. And I'm also enjoying sleeplessness, which normally I hate.

You can decide to bring joy to anything. And if you do, then you can enjoy anything at all. That's the decision I've rediscovered and re made. I recommend it to you.

I hope you will decide to enjoy everything that is. Sometimes it's tricky, and sometimes it's hard. But I believe it's worthwhile. But you can also decide differently. Your can decide to take joy from an occasion only if it meets some standard. Or is someone else brings enough joy, you might take some away. These are all fine choices, but I think that learning how to bring joy, to invest joy leads to a better life. I hope you take responsibility for being happy as a duty, and that you en-joy that.

I hope you enjoy!