The other day in the copy room, the AP Psych teacher asked me if I knew someone named Reggie.

Apparently he had been at a church event, and this Reggie mentioned that he knew someone who worked at our school: Me.

The only Reggie I know is my sister-in-law’s dad, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t him. Still, it got me thinking about how small this big world can feel sometimes. Maybe I met this Reggie somewhere out in the wild. Maybe we struck up a conversation and I mentioned that I was a teacher.

Who knows.

It’s funny having conversations like that with the AP Psych teacher, because I always half expect him to start psychologizing me. Sure enough, after a minute he asked:

“Are you the type of person who believes everything happens for a reason?”

I hesitated.

Because for a long time, that was exactly what I believed.

It was my mantra.

Years ago, when I was doing a lot of healing work, I had almost the exact same conversation with a therapist. She asked me the same question.

“Do you believe everything happens for a reason?”

Absolutely.

Then she asked, “Even the bad things that happened to you?”

I said yes again.

And then she asked something that stopped me in my tracks.

“What reason could there be, in an all-loving universe, for bad things to happen to people on purpose?”

That question stayed with me.

Because if everything happens for a reason, does that mean the pain was part of some story I didn’t write? What about the things that happen when we’re young, before we have language for them, before we even know how to protect ourselves?

Was there a reason certain things happened to me but didn’t happen to my friends growing up? Why me?

Did I do something wrong? Did I deserve it? Was it karma spilling over into this lifetime? Some cosmic lesson written into the script of my life?

And if that’s true…how did I get this script?

Why do some people seem to inherit storms while others inherit calm seas?

I sat with the feeling of that for a long time.

It didn’t feel fair.

Eventually I realized something uncomfortable but honest: I had been saying everything happens for a reason because it was something I heard at some point when I was hurting. Maybe when I was a kid. Maybe when I was trying to climb out of despair.

Believing there was a reason for everything helped me survive certain chapters.

But it also constructed a coping mechanism founded on the belief that I was deserving or not in control of the things that happened to me.

As an adult, that belief turned into a protector.

I became hyper-focused on finding the reason.

Everything felt like a clue.

One time I ran into a woman I had a crush on in New York. She stepped onto my exact subway car on a Sunday afternoon when I was headed downtown to my favorite bookstore.

In a city of a bajillion people what are the chances of that?

Clearly it meant something.

Maybe we were meant to be. Maybe…? Maybe…?

I told that story for years like it was Beowulf, searching for the hidden meaning that never actually appeared.

The truth is, most of the moments I overanalyzed never revealed any cosmic explanation. I just kept asking the same question over and over again:

Why would that happen if not for a reason?

Looking back, I think I spent a long time living in a state of hyper-vigilance. My nervous system constantly scanning for meaning, pattern, intention.

Analysis became a kind of armor.

But somewhere along the way, something shifted.

Standing there in the copy room with the AP Psych teacher, I realized two things at the same time.

First: I still don’t know who Reggie is.

Second: I don’t really care to chase down the reason anymore.

My perspective has shifted a little over the years.

For a long time, I believed everything happened for a reason.

Now I think something simpler is true.

Everything happens as an opportunity.

Not an explanation.
Not a cosmic lesson carefully designed just for me.

An opportunity.

We’re all swimming in this enormous ocean of energy: currents, tides, sharks, dolphins, storms. Every moment that washes into our lives is an opportunity.

An opportunity to drown.

An opportunity to swim.

An opportunity to ride the current somewhere new.

But it’s not our job to dissect every wave.

Our job is simply to be resourceful.

Not Why is this happening to me?

But How can I use this?

Even that conversation with my therapist years ago, at the time it felt like analysis. Now I can see it was an opportunity. It planted a seed that came back around years later in a copy room, at a moment when my nervous system is finally calm enough to hear it.

What I’m learning lately is that things that once demanded explanation don’t feel so urgent anymore.

And strangely enough, the less I analyze everything, the more interesting life seems to become.

Cool things show up.

Unexpected conversations happen.

New paths appear.

It’s not because the universe suddenly started behaving differently.

It’s because I finally put the armor of analysis and anticipation down.

And the funny thing about that is this: the more vulnerable I show up in the world, the less people seem interested in hurting me.

Or maybe it’s just that I’ve stopped letting people live rent-free in my head.

Either way, something feels lighter. It’s getting easier to put things down.

Not in an abandoning way. Just…healthier.

A quiet, steady sense of: Alright that happened. On to the next thing.

And when I look back, the meaning usually reveals itself on its own time.

So somewhere out there a man named Reggie thinks he might know me. Maybe I’ll run into him out in the world and my memory will click into place.

Or maybe he’s thinking of someone else entirely.

Either way, I’m not spending all afternoon anymore trying to figure it out.