There are definitely things that do not happen for any perceptible reason (at least in terms of some purpose focussed on your life). Everything happens 'for a reason' in that there is cause and effect - that branch fell on you and broke your leg because the tree was rotting - but, if you mean, was there some higher purpose to having your leg broken?

Well if you believe that, you have to pretty much discard free will as a concept, and assume there's some higher power tightly scripting all of your life. And once free will is gone, well, it doesnt matter what you do, right?

The people saying this seem very much to be Pollyannas trying to see everything as a good thing, which is such a complete denial of reality, I can't believe they actually put their full faith in this.

No... We have a tendancy as humans to write ourselves as the main characters in a story of a random universe...

Think of them as randomly generated challenges you need to overcome in order to gain experience points and level up.

All these posts are so insightful! I can't add much except to say, we like to pretend things happen for a reason, but really they just happen, we deal with them, and move on...then later we look back, when things are better and say: see I knew there was a reason for this! It just makes us feel better inside. To give our life meaning. But there's value in it. The only thing is you can't look for a reason too soon or the universe will trip you!

I feel so. I feel like we go through struggles so we become stronger.

No

yes,life is a test and how we approach a problem determines our grade.If we don't learn from a mistake,we won't ever grow.

sometimes that old maxim "what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" just doesn't seem enough right ;)

I don't know what to believe anymore -.-'

reason or not, we all fucking die eventually