Why You Refuse to Believe That Your Life Is Just a Series of Coincidences
Whenever something doesn’t go quite as planned, people’s default response seems to be something along the lines of “don’t worry, everything happens for a reason”. Humans try to infer meaning to things because the brain cannot deal with the chaotic thoughts of coincidence and unpredictability. We often need to have a sense of closure or an explanation as to why things did or didn’t pan out (although let’s face it, most of us want this only when things don’t work out).
So what if I were to tell you that everything that happens in our lives has no meaning and no linear pattern? What if I were to say that life really is a bunch of coincidences and random events? On the one hand, you might say that it’s obvious that there is no such magical thing as “fate” — where our lives are predetermined before we are even born — because this simply isn’t logical. On the other hand, you might say that everything that happens in life has a reason because it simply must.
Matthew Hudson, says this in his book The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking:
“When asking why (or why me), we’re demanding some reason beyond ‘this happened and then this happened’ — some answer that will give the event a higher meaning, that will put into context and maybe even excuse it. We’re hoping that it’s all part of someone’s or something’s plan… We’re picturing a universe that cares about human affairs, particularly our own.”
Humans have an innate habit of assigning reason or meaning to things we cannot explain. The ancient Greeks, for example, invented and anthropomorphised Zeus in order to explain lightning (cause somehow a giant man in the sky who shoots thunderbolts when he’s angry made a lot more sense to the ancient Greeks than simply not having an explanation). The reason we assign meaning or reason to something is to either justify it or to put it into a format that our brains can comprehend.
Assigning meaning to something (especially if that something is traumatic) can also provide relief. According to psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, suffering can cease when there is meaning assigned to it. I think that there is comfort in thinking that when something unpleasant happens, we can trust that there will be a positive outcome even if it takes a few years to see it. It is just human nature to default into this type of thinking because positivity brings pleasant results (and there is no questioning this). Not knowing why something happened means having no control over the events of our lives and that life events are just random; a thought that can be terrifying to most humans.
Meaning assigned to a particular event can also encourage correlations to be drawn between the event itself and the reasons we have convinced ourselves that the event was actually a good thing. This in psychology is called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias allows us to sieve through information and only see the evidence that already supports our theory. This bias is what results in us ‘realising’ that everything that has happened in our life fits perfectly together or ‘makes sense’. In reality, it does not and we are simply looking through the rose-tinted glasses of our existing beliefs. Once we adopt a belief we start seeing ‘signs’ or patterns that provide evidence for our belief.
Simply put, humans have a great talent for recognising patterns. This talent is part of our survival instinct, as pattern recognition allows us to recognise a potential threat before it is too late (e.g. realising that the patchy orange and black stripes in the distance are a tiger’s body being hidden by foliage). Our pattern recognition goes beyond determining threats, as we use this ability of drawing connections to define the context of our lives. In scientific terms, we compile the data we deem most relevant and form a conclusion from it. In simplistic terms, we tend to focus on the things in life that make our existence or ‘life-story’ coherent and we ignore anything that opposes this.
If this all seems a little overwhelming or pessimistic for you (although I’d argue with you and call it pragmatic) then you may find some comfort in the fact that nothing (and I mean nothing) in our lives is good or bad. We infer meaning onto things (this notion is actually the basis of Semantics). So anything that happens to you is neither meant to hurt you or please you; you are the one who decides how something will affect you. Ultimately this means that how you perceive or interpret things determines the quality of your life.
There is nothing wrong with thinking that every event in our lives has a reason and that our existence has a grand purpose. In fact, it is thoughts like these that keep us happy and give us a sense of fulfilment and purpose. But it is good to know why we have this type of bias in order to realise that humans, really aren’t logical and that it is this lack of logic, that ultimately makes us sane.
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