The reason everything happens

You've probably heard people say, "Everything happens for a reason." I think I know what the reason is.

Last week, all my anxiety about this presidential election got to me and I decided to find my local party headquarters and go get a lawn sign. (For anyone who cares to know, I'm with her.) I looked it up, saw that the address was over in the east part of town and decided I'll take a quick drive over there.

While there are several ways to get over to that side of town on local roads, and traffic can be bad on the highway, it was a weekend and I was only going one short exit -- literally half a mile from entrance to exit. So, off I went. I drove through my neighborhood, got up on the connector for a mile and took my exit to pick up I-95, only to see too late that the highway was jammed.

"Oh well, it's only half a mile up, so I won't be stuck in traffic long," I thought. As I waited a very long time to merge, I began thinking about all the other local routes I should have taken. And I began to wonder what the hold up was but then I finally got on and immediately got into my exit lane, and quickly forgot to care. Until I got closer to my exit and saw a cop there, flares lit in the road and his car BLOCKING my exit!

Augh!! What the heck? No accident that I could see. That's good, but what was going on? So, forlorn and a little angry, I stayed on the highway with all the other traffic, still moving slowly until I got to the next exit in the next town a good two or three miles out of my way. Really regretting this whole thing now, I got off, circled back and drove back into my town, finally arrived just where I needed to turn left, there was ANOTHER cop car and flares with an officer pointing to me and everyone else in line to turn right. Augh!!!

So, it turns out there was a local marathon. When I finally got to party headquarters they were closed. Sigh. I headed home thinking about that saying, everything happens for a reason. So, the reason this happened? The reason EVERYTHING happens? Because we are alive. Things just happen. That's it. That's the reason. Sometimes our own choices matter; sometimes they don't. Events simply happen. Period.

Ah! To make a happy life out of all that, you always get to choose how you react. Life continually offers us an opportunity to practice, to breathe, to observe, to choose. And at the end of the day, that's reason enough for me.