Everything always happens for a reason.... or does it?

Very interesting subject! I personally think the two are intertwined and inescapable. I believe that free will allows us to make choices, both large and small. I think my choice right now to be here responding to this discussion is free will, but not necessarily destiny. Where destiny would come in for this example, is that all of us here like to think and share thoughts, so that may in fact be part of our destiny. There are people like the Gandhi, who's life mission was to share his knowledge and belief with the world. Just like Mother Theresa, their destiny was to bring their thoughts to the masses. We of course are not in the same league as either of those two examples, but we do like to share knowledge with others. Destiny is the result of our free will. Where we choose to live and work has repercussions on everyone around us. Who we choose to marry, if we choose to marry, those are all major factors in life. But perhaps the most prevalent example of how our free will initiates destiny is if we choose to have children. We are all the children of our parents, so they initiated our destiny, the same way if we choose to bring new life into the world, we initiate destiny. Some may say a person is destined to be a parent, but who we choose as a mate is our free will....or is it? That's what makes this such a great question, there is no wrong answer. If one chooses to believe there is no such thing as destiny, is that them exercising their free will to choose not to believe, or is their destiny not to be a believer?

all things are not pre-written. there is lot of if...else condition exist in our life. If something does happen it will trigger some other effects.

There's another saying, which is 'God helps those who help themselves'. In other words, if you sit on your butt and don't do anything to help yourself then no-one else is going to either. If things happen for a reason, I'd rather the reason they happened is because my actions encouraged them to. Nothing we do is really of our own free will entirely, as there are so many things which govern our actions. The laws of our country, social convention, even the ideologies which we don't even realise we carry.

I think it's a combination. I believe we have our free will or in an ideal scenario everyone would have the free will to make choices. The idea is that we make positive choices so we can experience positive results of the choices we make. At the same time we are all learning and growing at our own pace. Different people have different life lessons. If we learn our life lessons we progress but if we neglect to learn we might end up learning the hard way. I believe everything happens for a reason because we attract what we think about. If we attract problems we have an opportunity to see that dwelling on the negative is never in our best interest.

This became quite an issue to me over the years. Its quite confusing that there's such thing as DESTINY at the same time, God gave us FREE WILL. How can the free will work if we are destined to some things in life? I believe in one God and I can feel it that He's the one who's holding me. If there's something I want, I tell Him and if He gives it to me, then that means that He wants it for me and it would benefit me a lot.

It is precisely why I asked the question because it cannot be both. Thanks for adding to this. I won't say debate because someone took umbrage with that word.

These are ironic things.. people often say that yes, that happened to me because it has reasons, often times we say, that happened to me because God let it happen to me, it has reasons..it made me stronger, it made me who i am now. But then again, if you look at it in a different way, it might not have happened that way if you have not decided for it to happen... there are things that are happening currently because of the past decisions we have made right? so it didn't happen just because so, it happened because of past choices.. sounds confusing but that is how i see it

I think everything has a PURPOSE after it happens. I don't really believe in fate though, I Believe in cause-and-effect - we make our own decisions and of course reap the consequences. And we learn from these experiences, I feel like. So I guess, sure, everything might happen for a reason. [em]happy[/Em]. Happy MyLOTTING!

I do believe that there are no accidents and also that we have the free will. I think you should not think the two separated as two of these things are connected. Destiny and fate are merely consequences of certain past decisions we've decided to act upon. We did use free will to act on those certain decisions and so will be the next decisions we will make. As I've said, destiny and fate are merely consequences of our deeds. Our past, present and future is connected to the other, that's why everything happens for a reason and that there are no accidents. Does this clarify your confustion? Happy MyLotting!

For me its both. You can use your free will in doing a lot of things in your life be it right or wrong. Everything we do has a consequence or prize after we've done it. I guess destiny has something for us but its up to us what path we're going to take..

I like to think of it as we do have free will to choose what to do or who to be. But it's like a Dungeons and Dragons pick your own ending kind of book: there's already a set of things or endins that may happen should we choose to do a certain something. So I do believe that things are predestined, and we can still choose how things play out!

I do believe that everything happens for a reason. A reason we ourselves created or a reason determined by God. Free will was given to allow us to chose. Why bother if everything is predetermined? It is because we choose not just accept everything presented to us.

life to me is a collection of so many decisions and choices and in every decision and in every choice I make I am creating my own destiny. The only destiny I will never be able to change is "TIME" with its I grew older and maturer.

I guess everything really happens for a reason and I do believe that it is based on our choice that's why every things that is happening to us is with regards to our choice. And whatever decision we had made is coming from a choice we make. :)

To be honest, I think everything in life is preset regardless of what happens through out your life or what choices you make and that just when your time is up it's up.