Recently, I ran into a bit of bad luck. I won’t bother you with the details—they’re not terribly interesting. What matters is, I was sitting at the bar with a friend—miserable and hunched over a dirty Stoli martini while he delivered a series of irritating, consolation clichés.
He was saying stuff like, “Well, you still have your health” and “Things could be worse” and, of course, the worst consolation cliché of them all. It’s only five words long, but these five words are so repugnant, they can drive a man to stab your neck with an olive spear should you speak them.
“Everything happens for a reason,” he said, then lifted his martini and gazed upward, as if what he said was blisteringly profound.
“Dude!” I snapped. “You did not just say, “Everything happens for a reason” to me.
“Well, it does,” he insisted.
“You’re a dipshit,” I told him as I stabbed his neck with an olive spear.
Even if it’s true that everything happens for a reason (a point I do not concede), how can you be sure that the “reason” will be a positive one? How can you be sure that, say, the reason I lost my legs in a car crash (hypothetical) was because I’m supposed to become a world renowned activist for legless people and make billions of dollars jet-setting around the world speaking to arena-sized audiences with my harem of gorgeous, horny cripple-groupies by my side.
It never occurs to people that maybe the “reason” I wrecked my car and lost my legs was because God hates me and wants me to suffer.
Or maybe everything does happen for a positive reason—only, not positive for me. For instance, what if the reason that my car wrecked is because there are too many cars on the planet. Well, sure, the planet might be better off, but I didn’t invite you out for a martini to make the planet feel better, dipshit!
Incidentally, the world’s leading authority on the Everything-Happens-for-a-Reason Theory is Mira Kirshenbaum, a renowned therapist, clinical director of the Chestnut Hill Institute, the author of nine award-winning books and a raging dipshit.
In her book, Everything Happens for a Reason, Kirshenbaum affirms it as fact: “Amazing as it sounds, it is true,” she writes, to which I respond, Really, Mira? Everything? And you know this because you have scientifically scrutinized everything that ever happened in the universe? Everything—from Plato’s gardener stubbing his toe on a rock to Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor—has been determined, by you, to have been for some greater purpose?
“[E]ven in the worst disaster there are wonderful gifts, hidden opportunities, or life-enhancing lessons. And we couldn’t have gotten them any other way.”
Grrr. This is a classic case of a flawed causal argument, more specifically known as, post hoc ergo propter hoc (from the Latin, meaning, “After this, therefore because of this”), which is like saying I crashed my car after hearing a Beatles song on the radio, therefore, the Beatles made me crash.
Yes, duh, Mira, of course there are gifts, opportunities and life lessons to be found after tragedy, but that doesn’t mean it was the reason the tragedy happened. And how do you know you couldn’t have gotten these gifts and opportunities in “any other way”? You can’t know that because you didn’t go any other way. You went that way.
When I fried my right knee many years ago, I was unable to bartend for several months. So, I made a conscious decision to focus on more writing. It was something I’d wanted to do anyway, but full-time bartending made it difficult. Now that I was sidelined, I had more time to write, and started selling articles to magazines across the country. By the time the knee heeled completely, I was making a living as a full-time journalist.
Now, if I were one of these Everything-happens-for-a-reason” dipshits, I would say, “See, I became a professional writer because of my knee injury” (Post hoc ergo propter hoc). But I realize – because, you know, I use my brain and shit – that any inclination I might have to give “reason” to my injury is likely due to an inherent human desire to believe that the things that happen to us have greater meaning because we are all, at core, stupid and narcissistic.
And, oh boy, if everybody wasn’t everything-happens-for-a-reason-ing me back then, too. I could never understand how people could say that. They made it sound like this bad thing that happened to me was actually it’s own entity, that it was a living, thinking being, and it was thinking was, Hey, that Decker guy needs to write more so I will pulverize his knee to send him a message.
But, really, couldn’t The Bad Thing that Happened to Me be a little less violent and intrusive? If The Bad Thing that Happened to Me wanted to send a message about how to improve my life, couldn’t it just put a brand-new computer on my doorstep with a note that said, “Write more, dipshit!”?
So, spare me the clichés. Seriously, the next time you run into someone who is facing hard times, don’t tell him everything happens for a reason. Tell him, “Man, I know there is nothing I can say to make you feel better except these five words of real, true consolation: “Barkeep, the drinks are on me.”
Now those are five words I can really wrap my fist around.
Ed Decker
09.01.09
I couldn’t agree with you more. A friend of mine recently killed himself and I heard that quite a bit and it drove me nuts. “She is also a raging dipshit” and “because, you know, I use my brain and shit” are my favorite parts of this.
Dear Decker:
So many times you rant against the same things that incense me. And your latest column has done it again.
The dual stupidity of the offensive phrase ‘everything happens for a reason’ is fatalism and teleology.
Teleology is the philosophical or religious belief expressed by the Latin phrase you used: a religious doctrine of final purpose, i.e., that creative developments are due to the purposes, designs or “plans” that are served and/or carried out by them. See also Aetiology.
Teleology, is the doctrine of explaining phenomena by their ends or purposes. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology or http://www.answers.com/topic/teleology).
In philosophical and ethical arguments, teleology is used to essentially prove a concept by using itself – an obvious cheat, but one that is so often used by those who are intellectually bereft or simply unaware.
Even usually non-religious people can sometimes be blinded by the fatalism contained in the offensive phrase. These are the same folks who espouse hope (as in ‘are you getting sick?’ ‘I hope not’) as a way to give up the power of controll over their own lives.
When something bad happens – a car crash, broken bone, house fire, etc. – and people use the offensive phrase, it’s like saying they had no control over whatever happened. Usually, that’s just not true.
The argument you quote author Kirshenbaum as using is absurd – and totally unscientific! – simply because in life we can’t try the experiment over again!! It is teleology at its finest.
Thank you for skewering it.
Your fan and constant reader,
Michael-Leonard
http://www.flexiblefotography.com (imaging)
http://sandiegoroundabout.blogspot.com (SDblog)
http://thinkingwrite.livejournal.com (generalblog)
I loved this… Thanks for saying what I’m thinking.
Ah , yes, A great column.=Touches home–
After a serious mishap in my life, I was also given one of those cliches. “It happened for the best.” I , too, jumped down his throat. And as you stated in your column, -how would he know that unless I went down both paths, which is what I said to him. I worked at accepting that mishap, and moved on. Others might have let it destroy them.
Years later, I met him again. And he said, “See, I told you it happened for the best.” Again , I jumped down his throat.
“No, Sir. We still don’t know that. However, what we do know, is that I survived, and used all my tools to deal with the mishap.” THE MOTHER