This is a concept that I tell my patients quote often.
While there may be unpleasant lessons that happen, they are lessons nonetheless.
We have to be open to the pain and difficulty, to be truly open to what it is we are supposed to gain from an experience. It can be difficult at times, to think in terms of everything happening for a reason, but it can also be helpful.
At times when we are going through a particularly difficult time, it can be very comforting to think that there is a purpose to this, and there will be a use for what I am going through this very moment.
Here is some sage advice about just this point:
1.) “Realize that if a door closed, it’s because what was behind it wasn’t meant for you.”
― Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass
2.) “Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON.”
— Albert Schweitzer
3.) “I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
— Marilyn Monroe
4.) “There will always be a reason why you meet people. Either you need them to change your life or you’re the one that will change theirs.”
– Angel Flonis Harefa
5.) “I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it.”
— Oprah Winfrey
6.) “Someday, everything will make perfect sense. So for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears, be strong and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason.”
— John Mayer
7.) “Do you believe that there are no coincidences in life? Everything happens for a reason. Every person we meet have a roll in our life, either it is big or small. Some will hurt, betray and make us cry. Some will teach us lesson, not to change us, but to make us to be a better person.”
— Cynthia Rusli
8.) Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.
— Walter Anderson
9.) Miracles happen everyday, change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you.
— Jon Bon Jovi
10.) Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.
— Michael Jordan
11.) Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
12.) Sad things happen. They do. But we don’t need to live sad forever.
— Mattie Stepanek
13.) I believe that the Laws of Karma do not apply to show business, where good things happen to bad people on a fairly regular basis.
— Chuck Lorre
14.) We go through our careers and things happen to us. Those experiences made me what I am.
— Thomas Keller
15.) I wouldn’t change anything. I think that it’s important to let things happen, and stay ‘happened’. I think that’s all part of the learning curve, part of fate. I’m just glad that it happened.
— Mike Peters
16.) The world is so unpredictable. Things happen suddenly, unexpectedly. We want to feel we are in control of our own existence. In some ways we are, in some ways we’re not. We are ruled by the forces of chance and coincidence.
— Paul Auster
17.) You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.
— Mary Tyler Moore
18.) The worst thing you can do is try to manipulate or control perceptions. It’s impossible, and when you are found out the result is disastrous. Better to be transparent and play well with others so that when bad things happen you have a reservoir of good will to bank on.
— John Gerzema
19.) Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you’re positive, good things happen.
— Deep Roy
20.) In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin