Humans love to find “meaning” in just about everything. Every light was green this morning but Starbucks got your name wrong? Then the universe is pointing you toward the person with the name on your cup, obviously. Got fired from your job for gross incompetence? That’s just the universe telling you that you’re needed somewhere else. A cat came up to you on the street? Clearly it’s your reincarnated grandmother telling you that you should definitely go on that vacation you wanted to go on.
Look, most stuff just happens. But humans are non-stop meaning machines, trying to turn every event into something profound. It’s our greatest curse… but it can be our greatest blessing.
First, repeat after me: no external source imbued any of the events of your life with profound meaning. Everything that happens to you just happens, either because of a really obvious root cause or Random Bullshit ™. So don’t look for meaning.
Create it.
The events in your life don’t innately have meaning. But it doesn’t follow that they have to be meaningless. Use that incredible power humans have to find meaning in things all you want, as long as you hold the grounding fact in your mind that you are doing this for yourself. You are choosing to learn lessons and make decisions because of what you experience. You have agency, and you’re reading the vast weave of information around you to learn what to do with it.
You can choose meaningful actions based on what you learn. You can live a meaningful life. But those things don’t happen to you – they’re caused by you.
Know what I mean?
The Opportunity Machine 