Do things really happen for a reason.

Its been a while but I'm back. Maybe for a little while or for good who knows. Lol. So I was moving out of gloomy Michigan to sunny South Carolina this week and while I was making the long drive it made me think about my life and some of the decisions that I've made that led me down my current path. I'll be the first to say that things are far from perfect but I'm not going to complain. Could they be worse?? Definitely. Which led me to my current question and something that I'm not sure I believe in anymore. Do things really happen for a reason? Is there some kind of grand design for us all and we just don't know it?? Or do we just use this reasoning to make us feel better or justify what's currently happening in our life right now. Albeit it good or bad of course. We can look back at many of things that we've done and they have led us down certain paths. Were we meant to go that route or if it was predestined is a different story altogether though. I used to believe that most things in life happen for a reason but now I feel that it's something that we use to justify what's currently going on in our lives. I can become stricken with  a terminal illness right now but does that mean it happened for a reason. I don't think so. It's something that I'd use to try to make myself feel better when this occurrence is completely random just like most other things in life are. Certain things that we do can affect the outcome of other situations but that doesn't mean it happened for said reason. We all take away different things from some of the stuff that happens in our life. Some of us don't take away anything at all unfortunately. But I guess that's just how things go. I'm looking forward to this new and hopefully non complicated chapter in my life. But life can be random so we'll see how it goes.