Author: Christine Elias

This tea is sitting on the table beside the fridge in my office. My colleague N. brought it back from one of her international trips.

No one drinks it. I did however photograph it for my own amusement. I think I will try sit-ups instead, however.

Everything happens for a reason.

I was in an interesting conversation about this concept recently. Luckily, I was chatting with someone who agrees with me — so there was no awkward difference of opinion on the often sensitive topic of fate.

It’s not something I believe. Bad things happen. Really bad things happen. Horrible nightmares occur. That’s just the way it is. (Great things happen as well, but today I am dwelling on the bad. Good times will be covered in a later post — perhaps after I do some weeping to clear my head.)

The world can be a vicious place and it makes sense that as humans we want to make sense of the senseless. I understand the impulse.

It’s rooted in the belief that everything that happens — both good and bad — is part of a deity’s master plan.

I shudder to think what that master plan is. It’s not going rather well so far.

All we can do is try to learn from the bad hands we get dealt. But sometimes there’s no lesson to be learned.

Yeah, no lesson. But I won’t be writing a self-help book called “When Crap Happens and You Learn Nothing.”

It won’t sell. But it will be true.