Whenever something happened in her life, a woman I once worked with would declare “Everything happens for a reason.” To her, this was destiny. So, when her department was closed and she had to transfer to a new department, she reasoned that this happened because she was destined to do something special in her new environment. When she was involved in a minor auto accident, she saw this as a sign that she should postpone a planned upcoming trip. All life events that affected her became part of her existence.

She was not the first person I knew who saw life’s events as being part of some preordained purpose in her life, but that view I have always found troubling. That perspective may give one a sense of having an ordered life, but, to me, this is a manifestation of our inbred human assumption that there must be a reason for everything, and also a rationalization to avoid facing life directly.

Trust me, there are no reasons for everything we encounter in life. Life happens. Things happen with no intent. That tree that fell on your car? It didn’t fall to prevent you from taking that vacation trip. It just happened. We regularly hear or see the comment, “Everything happens for a reason,” and we are prone to accept it because it sounds reasonable. Yes, reasonable, and that is why we accept it, instead of seeing it as the meaningless phrase that it is.

Looking back, I see this embedded belief we humans have (that there is a reason for everything) may be systemic within our self-awareness, a belief that there is a reason for our existence as the human race. More to the point, we believe that there is a reason for each of us to exist on this earth. To me, there appears to be a touch of predestination also in this belief. Did we inherit this belief of reason from Calvinism? A bit of a stretch, yes, but that 16th-century religious framework is still a major part of the Christian religion, whether we accept it or not.

This inherent belief structure further manifests itself in our unquenchable thirst to find the meaning and purpose of the universe, as we do acknowledge that the universe precedes us. We regularly ask scientists either to explain the origin of the universe or to explain its purpose, neither of which are important to scientists, whose primary interest is in figuring out how it works and how it affects us. Searching for its origin provides no benefit or knowledge.

What we have are what you might call hard facts, facts that have no reason and may never be explained. The universe is immense, far exceeding the imagination of any of us, and our meager human race on this planet has no more relevance in the broader picture than that ant you accidentally stepped on. Those are hard facts. Yes, despite the universe’s immenseness, it has no purpose. If the universe has no purpose, then those within it (us) have no purpose, are here only briefly, and, in universe time, will quickly disappear. Humanity, as a species, serves no purpose in the universe and, conversely, is the primary cause of the earth’s environmental sufferings. Purpose? None. Compared to the universe’s existence of almost 14 billion years, our existence of fewer than 100,000 years is but a small blip in history.

So, knowing that, there can be no way that there is a reason or purpose for our existence, whether individually or collectively. If there is to be a reason for us, we must take ownership and define it. To think otherwise is pure fantasy. This is not a condemnation of life or an intent to demean the life we have. No, this is the good news: our life is ours to define, ours to own, ours to celebrate. All we need is the courage to take control of our life, not leaving it to others or to our belief that there is some preexisting reason we must follow.

We, ourselves, create the foundation for our lives, and how we react to life’s events shapes us even more—but those events do not happen for a reason; they just happen. If there is a reason for our lives, it is because of what we do. That’s it. It’s that simple. Trying to bring the universe, our heritage, or religion into the equation on the meaning of life is just adding unnecessary weight to the issue. Life is on our shoulders. It’s a weight we can manage. We can do this.