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Apr 14, 2004 The other day after going out with all of my friends I could not help but to think that I had a time that was almost flawless. I am unable to contemplate or conceptualize not having these people be apart of my life. I guess it makes sense to look back on the popular cliché that everything happens for a reason, but at times that seems a little off as well. I believe I am very fortunate to have been lucky enough to surround myself with very good people, but I also realize that everyone does not necessarily have that luxury. So if everything happened for a reason why would some people have very good friends and others have not a single soul on the planet that they are able to trust or relate to? My friends and I make a point to watch the HBO show the Sopranos every single Sunday night religiously. It has become such a ritual at our place that we have a group of die-hard Sopranos fans that show up with a gleam in their eyes like no other week in and week out. Two episodes ago, Tony Soprano the mob boss was confronted by his wife that he is separated from. They shared a rather intense dialogue, but the most noteworthy element in their argument occurred when Carmella told Tony that he had no friends. Tony fired back stating that he did in fact have friends, people that respected him and also found him a pleasure to be around. Carmella told him that these people were not his friends, just basically flunkies that were afraid of him. This prompted Tony to do some real thinking about the subject and he later came to the conclusion that Carmella was correct in her assessment of his relationships with the other people in his organized crime ring. This made me wonder what was truly the reason for Tony not having any close friends. Perhaps it was the type of person that he was. Maybe it was because he was hardened by life and respected nothing. Maybe it was because he never had a good role model that illustrated to him how to interact with people and formulate positive relationships. Possibly it was because he never truly felt in his heart of hearts that he could trust people for whatever reasons. If the cliché everything happens for a reason is to be believed it seems that one would have to delve deeper into why Mr. Soprano and other individuals don’t have good friends. At the root of all of it though, there has to be some reason. I believe that in situations like this you have to look at elements that effect ones life as links in a chain. Every single link is there for some reason and it then attaches to another link because of something. For example, if someone was never accepted as a child and was taunted by other children, it seems safe to believe that it would be harder for them to make friends as an adult. This situation would be justified because they never had meaningful childhood relationships. If they never have a model of what something should be like, then how could they be expected to replicate the model once they are in fact older? If we revisit our cliché though it seems that there would be a reason the child would be made fun of then. There also seems like there would be a reason the other children would pick out something about the child to harass them about. Perhaps in Tony’s case he was made fun of as a child, so he sought out the position as crime lord to get back at the type of people that made ridiculed him as a child. That would be an explanation but it still does not do enough for me to suggest why the children would have made fun of him in the beginning. Tony is an overweight person so perhaps he was the same way as a child. Perhaps his weight problems led the children to make fun of him. Then we would have to know why Tony was overweight as a child. Maybe it was because he was extremely inactive as a child, or in other words plain lazy. Maybe his laziness caused his obesity and subsequent lack of true friends later in life. I began to think after that, that the cliché should be changed to things happen because of a reason rather than things happen for a reason. I think the latter insinuates that there is something positive that occurs when everything happens. I believe that my variation of the popular phrase is more realistic. If I am walking down the street and get hit by a car the accident occurred more because of me not paying attention or because the driver was speeding, than because it was “my time”. It seems to me that, “the everything happens for a reason” idea is a cop out for lazy people that don’t care to seek out or discover why something truly happens. This idea is applicable to absolutely any aspect of life, but it just became clear to me after thinking about my friends and then realizing why some people are not as fortunate as me. I believe that there have been specific reasons people are not good friends and explanations as to why they don’t have any. If someone that you are best friends with steals your girlfriend, it is because that person was not a good friend, or because that person is a bad person, or because they were selfish. The person does not steal your girlfriend because it was “not meant to be”. The situation was not meant to be because you thought an individual was close to you, when in reality they were not. It seems to me when you use the cliché everything happens for a reason you need to explain the why, with another cliché. For example, if someone close to you dies, people will say, it was “in the cards”. This line of thinking irritates me because it does not take into account any of the plethora of reasons why something actually happened. Maybe your loved one died because they did not exercise enough, or because they hated taking the medicine that would have prevented them from getting sick. After you identify a reason then you can say it was his time because he did not do x, y, or z. There is an extreme lack of investigation that becomes visible when people choose to take situations as they are. I wish that everyone would acknowledge that there are in fact reasons, and logical reason for why events occur. I am disgusted when people act like this world revolves around mere chance. Everyday people make specific and thought out decisions. It would be fantastic if everything were left up to chance because you could lie around all day and allow for everything to eventually take care of itself. Unfortunately, we do not live in a world that hinges on chance or where everything simply happens just because. We live in a world where things happen because of agitation and catalysts. We inherited a world where things happen because of the actions of people. We live in a world that transcends the proverbial and conventional wisdom of tawdry clichés. We live in a world where people should be held accountable for their actions, and responsible for their lack of action. ------------ About the author: Jason Trace is a graduate of Michigan State University. Email Jason Trace: tracejas@msu.edu Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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