I believe that there is no such thing as coincidences. Everything happens for a reason and as cliché as that sounds it is true. Throughout your life you will experience many hardships that may seem unfair at the time, but are just a way of steering you in the right direction. You may work day and night to achieve your goals and no matter how hard you try, something always seems to get in the way. I think that these things you cannot control are just signs that you should move a step back, and take them for what they are. These are signs that you should move in a different direction.

I once read a story about a man who slept through his alarm to go to work early in the morning. He woke up hours after his work day began and was scattering to get himself together. He reached the spot that his daily bus would pick him up to take him to work. But unsurprisingly he had missed it. He decided to catch a taxi that would take another 30 minutes due to early morning traffic in New York City. As he got closer to his office he peered out the car window and witnessed something terrible. A plane crashing into the side of the building he was supposed to be in. The Twin towers crumbled before his very eyes. Sleeping through his alarm just two hours earlier seemed like a hardship, when really it saved his life.

These kind of things happen every day. Sometimes it’s on a grand scale like the man on 9/11 and sometimes they are smaller signs, both we should listen to. Remembering that there are no coincidences can be comforting to those that are experiencing hard times. You don’t even have to believe in a greater power for this to be true. It happens all around us. We tend to listen more to our brain than our gut. When truthfully our gut feelings are almost always right. Our first instincts tell us to ignore these coincidences and dismiss them for nonsense. You miss out on so many more opportunities when you choose to do that. 

My mom and I both watch a lot of investigations shows. Once a new episode came on about a killer who went on a killing spree in America not too long ago. The episode begins with an interview with a middle aged girl who came in close contact with this killer. It was about 5:00 P.M. when she was walking her dog by a lake near her house. About halfway through her walk she noticed a man who was walking about 30 feet behind her. He seemed like a normal guy, and he was minding his own business. For some weird reason she couldn’t explain, she had a strange gut feeling about this guy. He seemed normal but she couldn’t seem to shake the uneasy feeling he gave her. So she decided to take a short cut and separate herself from his sight. The next day she had forgotten all about her strange gut feeling. But as she turned on the news his face appeared on her screen. Cops broke down his door and find a horrific scene. Several women murdered in his basement. Maybe we shouldn’t call these things coincidences at all, but fate.