Everything happens for a reason. It’s something I’ve come to not only accept, but believe with my whole heart. Some people believe in God, the universe, or manifestation. Some believe in nothing at all, and maybe that in itself is still a belief—that they are simply here without intended purpose.

I believe in a combination of all things, but at the core of it all is this: everything happens for a reason. When we try harder, that becomes part of the reason. When we choose not to try at all, that too becomes part of it. Either way, it all happens for a reason.

This way of thinking has rarely left room for regret or what ifs. I’ve found ways to understand my life up until this point and accept that, in the grand scheme of things, I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.

But every once in a rare moon, I fall victim to the what if. Maybe it’s because I’m creative, or because hope springs eternal, but lately I can’t help diving deep into it all. It’s almost like I’m giving myself an emotional decision tree. If this hadn’t happened, maybe that would have. It’s unhealthy and unfair, I know, to sit in a room and fabricate fantasies about what life could have been instead of living in what it is.

In those abandoned thoughts, I forget about being altruistic and become completely selfish. Life becomes exactly how those what ifs would have granted it. But the thing about the mind is that it’s a beautiful disaster. It has a way of convincing us of things that aren’t there. We turn a blur into clarity.

So I am stuck in the cycle, when really, I should resist resisting to exist.