Erin is the writer of Daisies and Bruises, a blog about "finding her way one step and one word at a time. After losing most of her youth to severe depression, she decided that since death was no longer an option, she had to find a way to live. This is it."

Let’s get one thing straight: everything does NOT happen for a reason.

People say that kind of thing to put a positive spin on life’s upsets, but there is a time and a place for that kind of thinking. For example, tell one of the victims of Japan’s recent earthquake that everything happens for a reason. Tell someone who has just been diagnosed with AIDS that everything happens for a reason. How about the people watching their children starve in the Horn of Africa right now? You’d have to be a fucking asshole to tell them that everything happens for a reason.

But don’t worry, because there is hope for that line of thinking. Everything does not happen for a reason, but you can change your line of thinking and find a positive outcome that could become a ‘reason’ in your mind. After a certain amount of time has passed, you can look back on something negative and look at the fallout. Maybe the negative event put change into motion and change can be good.

For example, as you know I had a car accident about a month ago where my car was totaled during which many people told me, “Everything happens for a reason!” I responded politely but internally I was throwing a temper tantrum because losing my car was not what I wanted. The only reason apparent to me at the time was that life is unfair and it likes to screw with me.

Now that some time has passed I have a bit more perspective. Before my car accident I wasn’t thinking about whether I was happy about where I was living. I just stayed here even though living on the main floor means I have very little privacy and I keep my blinds closed most of the time. There are some people in my building that make me uncomfortable and I don’t fit in with my neighbours who mostly have children or are elderly. The car accident was a catalyst for change and as soon as I started considering moving elsewhere I found a cute little apartment in the PERFECT location downtown. I am moving in the next few weeks and am so excited! This new place has so much more character, convenience, and privacy and I think I’m going to be a lot happier there.

I won’t tell you that the reason I crashed my car was related to me needing to move. It wasn’t some unconscious thing that happened where fate stepped in and made my life change in ways I didn’t want it to. But now that I do have a positive outcome of the accident, I’m looking at it in a new light and that light is helping me move on from the negative event.

Fall is a time of change, whether it’s the colour of the leaves or school starting back up. Change is scary but essential because it allows us to grow. Imagine how boring life would be if we couldn’t grow!

Has your life changed recently? Some change is intentional and some is not. What reason can you make out of a big change in your life? We can’t control everything, but we can control how we think about it.

Sidenote: The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb really explores tragedy and the bizarre and wonderful things that happen because of and despite it. It’s an upsetting book but a very powerful and hopeful book too

-By Erin