Does Everything REALLY Happen for a Reason? A Contemplation on the Passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Does everything really happen for a reason? I’m not so sure.

2020 has been a year like no other in my memory. The earth is giving us so many challenges and then there’s the political and cultural shifts afoot that can truly challenge your beliefs about everything. COVID19 has brought tragedy to our life in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of souls. 

It’s staggeringly overwhelming. The human brain is really not built to process these things. And I’m not kidding. Our brains are built to compel us to action more generously and reliably when we learn about a single human being’s suffering or opportunity, while faceless statistics leave us numb and less willing to take action. And then this happened…

A Contemplation on the Passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

For decades, Justice Ginsberg supported our constitutional rights, first as a lawyer and judge, then for 27 years as a U.S. Supreme Court judge.  If you haven’t seen it her workout with Steven Colbert is both hilarious and endemic of her gentle and strong spirit.

I have wanted to say so many things about what Justice Ginsberg, affectionately known as “RBG”, has meant to women in our country, but my friend, Karen Vasquez has said it so much better than I ever could, so I’ll share your words with you here:

If you are a woman and hold a job, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. If you got to keep that job even when you became pregnant, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. If you hold a credit card or a bank account or a house in your name, without the permission of your husband or your father, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. If you were able to marry the person you love, regardless of their gender or yours, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. If you don’t even know the number of rights that you have, because there are too many to count, or maybe because you just take them for granted, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. Every single woman stands on the shoulders of this tiny giant, every second of every day; there are not enough thanks in this world for Justice Ginsburg.

While I always appreciated Justice Ginsberg’s voice on the court, I never truly understood the impact she has made with her entire life until I watched the movie  On the Basis of Sex and RBG, a documentary. These films remind us that it has been within my lifetime that women truly have the rights in our society that so many of us–myself included–take for granted every day. With her passing it’s clear to me that the responsibility to ensure that we use these rights responsibly and proactively falls to each of us individually.

What have I done today to protect and advance the rights of women in our society? This is a question I will now ask myself daily.

Did RBG’s Death At This Crucial Time Happen for a Reason?

Like so many things that have happened this year, breaking all our expectations, Justice Ginsberg’s death at such a crucial time, right before a pivotal election, puts me deep in the question, does everything REALLY happen for a reason?

This comforting thought has truly brought me solace in the past. When things go wrong it has helped me relax into the silver linings of tragedy and sadness. It’s helped me find meaning in absurdity and chaos. It’s helped me console others. There’s something calming about the passage of time, as emotions cool and the brain finds patterns and meaning in events that feel brutally random as they occur. And then, sometimes things do just flow perfectly in a way that allows me to enjoy the idea that things have happened for a reason. 

But in recent years–even before 2020–I’ve been challenged to find such comfortable meaning in every downturn and upturn. Contemplating the historic sweeps of change from climate to global politics, I’ve come to believe that everything does NOT happen for a tidy little reason. Some happenings are just too big, too overwhelming, too systemic in systems so vast as to be unthinkable by the human brain.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe there may be higher forces at work in our lives. I do, actually. But I no longer believe EVERYTHING happens for a reason. I believe in a certain amount of luck; I believe in a certain amount of true randomness that opens doors for us to walk through, if we have the courage.

Having given up the tidy comfort of destiny embodied in “everything happens for a reason,” I can now actually find comfort in believing both ideas are true:

• Things do happen for reasons we can and can’t imagine
• Luck happens

In believing both are true, doors open everywhere. Where there may be a reason, we can find meaning. Where there may be chaos, we may find opportunity. 

In the end, I am comforted most by the idea of Return on Luck, researched compellingly by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great. His exhaustive research on businesses who experienced both good luck and bad luck showed one simple truth, when companies responded to any luck as an opportunity waiting to be taken, they succeeded.

And I think that’s the key, if we lean into everything that happens–whether it feels “good” or “bad”–we win. I do believe that the human mind operates best when it finds meaning in things (at least mine does), so looking for what might be at play if XYZ “happens for a reason” is a very effective mind game I can play with myself to give my life, moment by moment, more meaning, more direction and more focus.

Did RBG’s death on September 18, 2020 happen for a reason? It doesn’t matter. It happened. And her life, and her death, is now the reason I am going to ask myself today and every day:

What have I done today to protect and advance the rights of women in our society? via @DanaTheus <== Click to Tweet

How about you? Does it matter to you whether everything happens for a reason? Or will you use whatever happens to find meaning and focus in your life and in your day? We only have the time we have. Use yours to make a difference.