I haven’t had the heart to take down our wind chimes yet, though they should probably come in for the winter. But they’re a particularly pleasant set of chimes, and I’m predisposed to enjoy music with elements of chance built in.
The sounds from the chimes aren’t predictable, but there’s nothing random about the music they make. A web of cause and effect composes their music.
People designed and manufactured the chimes to produce a certain set of complimentary tones. When we took them out of the box, we chose a spot outside our home to hang them, which influenced where the wind that moves them comes from. Then there’s the wind itself.
The wind pushes them based on air currents, pressure systems, and the surrounding environment. And even those factors are influenced by people, either by the way they alter the environment directly through construction and landscaping, or in on a larger scale by the way human actions influence the climate.
When people tell you everything happens for a reason, often they want you to feel like that your suffering exists to teach you a lesson.
Regardless of how you feel about that interpretation, everything does happen for a reason, but that but it is not necessarily about you, or to guide you.
Nothing truly happens in a vacuum. C happens because B happens because A made it happen, and so on.
If this sounds pessimistic, remember that you’re a part of that web of cause and effect.
Things may not happen just to teach you a lesson or force you to learn and grow, but you can choose to become something other than what you are. You can alter your links in the chain.
This Builds Character 