Do you think everything happens for a reason?

Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

There was a time when I’d answer that question without hesitation.

Absolutely.

Everything happens for a reason.

It was a comforting philosophy—simple enough to fit on a coffee mug or stitched onto a throw pillow in some overpriced boutique. Every heartbreak was a lesson. Every setback was preparation. Every scar was part of some invisible blueprint drafted by forces far wiser than ourselves.

Then life stopped playing by the rules.

This year came at me like a drunken logger with a chainsaw and a grudge.

I lost two of my best friends—not because they died, which would have been tragedy enough—but because they made choices so catastrophic they detonated everything around them. Families shattered. Trust evaporated. Years of memories suddenly felt contaminated, like finding out your favorite whiskey had antifreeze in it all along.

So tell me…

What exactly was the reason for that?

What cosmic accountant looked down from the heavens and scribbled in the ledger, “Yes… Jason needs this. It’ll build character.”

Character?

Hell.

I’ve got enough character to start my own Dickens novel.

I’ve buried my father.

I’ve watched marriages fail—my own included.

I’ve fought for my kids.

Lost jobs.

Lost sleep.

Lost faith in people I would’ve trusted with my life.

At some point the universe stops looking like a wise old professor and starts resembling a blackjack dealer who keeps pulling twenty-one while you’re stuck holding a busted hand.

And yet…

Here’s where the madness takes another turn.

Because even as I question the idea that everything happens for a reason, I can’t ignore what happens after it happens.

The float down the Willamette.

The silence.

The photographs.

The nights under the stars where the only conversation came from the current pushing against the raft and a pair of bald eagles arguing somewhere above the cottonwoods.

Those moments didn’t erase the pain.

But they reminded me I was still capable of feeling something other than anger.

Maybe that’s the flaw in the question.

Maybe asking whether everything happens for a reason is the wrong damn question altogether.

Maybe life isn’t handing out carefully scripted lessons.

Maybe it’s just throwing punches.

The meaning comes afterward.

From what we build with the wreckage.

From deciding whether betrayal hardens us into cynical old bastards who trust nobody… or whether we keep wandering into forests with cameras around our necks, still believing there’s something worth finding beyond the next bend in the trail.

Hunter used to chase truth through chaos.

I’m beginning to think chaos is the truth.

Life doesn’t owe us explanations.

It doesn’t stop to justify itself.

Sometimes the people you love become strangers.

Sometimes good people suffer.

Sometimes the fire burns down the wrong forest.

Sometimes the villains walk away.

That’s reality.

Brutal. Unapologetic. Completely indifferent.

But somewhere between the smoke, the heartbreak, the rivers, the campfire coffee, and the photographs, another realization creeps in.

The reason isn’t waiting for you at the beginning.

It’s waiting for you at the end.

You create it.

One step.

One story.

One scar.

One photograph at a time.

So do I still believe everything happens for a reason?

I honestly don’t know anymore.

What I do believe is this:

Everything that happens gives us a choice.

And perhaps that’s the only reason the universe ever intended to give us.