Past Lives: Why Do Bad Things Happen?

I got into a fight with one of my best friends the other day. She was, I believe, my sister Salisbury in my life as Mary Carter, and she and I have been friends in this life since 2002. That's a considerable time for a friendship -- not as long as my other best friend Samantha, whom I've known since I was four, but still eight years is nothing to sniff at. This friend, whom I will call Joy, is the most precious person I've ever met. She's outgoing, engaging, funny, insightful, and loyal. Still, she has some bad habits, and these habits had hurt me a time or two in our nearly nine-year relationship. I usually let these things roll over me, and I say very little about what she's done that's hurt me. Last Saturday, I didn't. Like Chinese water torture, I had endured the very final drip that pushed me over the edge, and I said something. I said a lot. Very nicely, mind you, and couched in the reassurance of how much I loved her, and how I was only telling her what she'd done to be truthful, as all relationships should be founded on truth. After all, I'd want someone to tell me if I were inadvertently hurting someone over and over again.

Let's say her response was less than favorable. Let's say she was downright hostile. She no longer wants to be friends now, because of the things I very nicely and gently tried to point out to her -- things that, if she listened, would make her happier in the long run as well as me.

Now, friendless, I ask myself: Why did this happen? I could have chosen not to tell her these things, and could have continued to endure her thoughtless actions again and again. But I really do think there was no other choice. There is a school of thought that says we do not make choices, that everything is already decided based upon what has come before. When we look back on our decisions, with hindsight, there really was only one choice to make. Joy's last insult was the final straw, and I could take no more. It was all laid out beforehand, and there's a reason this is happening now, right before Christmas, right when she is at her weakest, and she's lost her job, and she's leaving her husband. There is a reason for everything, and I am following a plan that we all agreed to before we were even born -- or a plan that we are all privy to because we are all interconnected by God, M Theory, or what have you.

Did I mean to ruin her Christmas? No, most definitely not. Do I want her back as a friend? Absolutely. But there's a reason this is happening, and I have a feeling that I'm only its tool. When bad things happen in groups, as if your luck has gone horribly awry and the universe is against you, there must be a bigger reason. Since I do not believe we have choices, and subsequently I do not believe in Karma (and the lessons that seem to be implied by Karma), I am of the belief that the reason things happen -- especially bad things -- is to feel. We are put on this earth to feel what we cannot on the other side. And how do I know what it's like on the other side? Well, that's a story for another day.