Does it Really Happen for a Reason? And WTF is Karma?

There are a couple of sayings that I've heard, while growing up, and also a lot more recently, and I'm confident that many of you have heard them, or used them yourself upon occasion.   What are they, you may wonder?

1. Everything happens for a reason.

2. It's Karma.  Karma.  They'll get what they deserve, Karma. 

If life has taught me anything, it's that those statements are baloney.  They seem to be used to help us understand what we can not.  To try to make sense of why good things happen to bad people and why bad things happen to good people.  To bring sense to the insensible.  

I believe there are some things that happen for a reason. For example, I stopped training, kept eating in a similar fashion, and therefore cannot be surprised that cellulite has populated on some areas of my body.  There is a reason.    If I start smoking, it will be difficult for me to stop due to the addictive properties of nicotine, and then I will most likely end up dying of cancer, cardiovascular disease, a stroke, or peripheral vascular disease complications.   These types of things have a reason. 

What was the reason behind my daughter dying?  I'm trying to find one.  Doesn't seem to be one.  Things just happen because they happen.  What we choose to do after events take place is our decision.    But the event didn't happen so we could have the opportunity to make those choices.   "Shit happens". 

And Karma.  Destiny or fate from the sum of our mental and physical actions in this and previous existence, deciding our fate for the future.  I'm sure there is someone who will try to explain this to me.  I'm still trying to figure out what my daughter did to receive this form of karma, what her family did to have this happen to us, and the pain it caused all her friends.  What did all those people do to bring that Karma?  

I think when someone passes away in a manner outside what we feel is normal, like when your child dies before you, you notice how many more people have suffered from something similar.  A freak accident that takes a husband, a drunk driver that wipes out your family except for you, an illness that has no thought of what it's doing to the person it inhabits, it's just trying to survive, but the pain caused doesn't go away, and the results of all these things does not seem fair. 

When someone does something that ticks you off, and you say "Karma will get them".  It probably won't.  No matter how terrible you think that person is, or if they did something that was wrong, they could very well get away with it and win LottoMax the next week to boot.  You can be the most amazing, kind, generous, selfless person out there and bad things could still happen to you or those you love, what Karma is that?  What was the reason?  Some bigger plan we cannot see? Or a way for us to try to feel better, that there is a larger plan behind the pain, so we don't have to try to explain the unfathomable. 

We do have a choice after "the reason" whether good or bad.  We have the choice to move forward, to try to do good things for others and ourselves, be productive, and try to live and find ways to enjoy life within our means.  

You will not hear me ask you not to use those statements, it's your choice, your beliefs, we all have our own.   I would just ask that if you are commenting on my child, or to almost anyone else who has lost one, not to tell them 'everything happens for a reason'.  Save that for a different conversation.