An often heard phrase is “Everything happens for a reason” when you feel a certain event happens to you and you’re trying to explain why this may have happened. Oftentimes it’s followed with an explanation as to why the Universe let this particular thing happen to you and what lessons could be learned from it.

Say, you’re a busy person, juggling with lots of works, trying to squeeze in your favourite sports while being a family man/woman. One day, while getting ready for work you trip over a towel you left floating around in the bathroom and bruise a rib. You now are obliged to take it easy for weeks to come, meaning you may have to call in sick for the first few days, you can’t do your favourite sports for a while and even at home you can’t play the role as a parent to the max, the way you were used to.

Many spiritually inclined people may believe this event happened for a ‘reason’ and attach a story to the event. A story that could go along the lines like: “See, my life has been so busy, the Universe is telling me to slow down. And since I am not doing this out of my own free will, it now gave me the lesson by me injuring my rib.”

Although you have all freedom to believe this idea, I would like to ask you to investigate this thought.

• Do life events happen to you?
• Or could this be a story you create around an event?
• Does turning it into a mind made story make it real, make it true?
• Is the Universe a separate entity, looking over you and giving you a lesson to chill out when it feels apt?
• Is there you and the Universe, like a teacher and a student?
• Could it be possible that this event just happened and just be part of the flow of life in which things happen (or not happen for that matter)?
• Could it be that you’ve subconsciously known for a while that you’re juggling with too many things and deep down you have known that for your well-being it would be better to take it easy, now attributing a certain event to confirm what you already felt inside?

Whatever the idea is that you attach to an event, I’m not saying you’re wrong or right, or that nothing happens for a reason. You are totally free to believe whatever resonates with you. All I ask is whether you’re willing to investigate this thought, to invite you to observe the ideas that the mind makes up around a happening and enquire whether these thoughts are true, or yet another mind made idea to enhance your own identity as a separate self living in co-existence with life and the Universe.