Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

This article deals with the commonly asked question: “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”, as seen from a law of attraction perspective.

This blog post focuses on the commonly proposed idea that there is something strange happening in the universe. For if there isn’t something strange going on, why is it that bad things happen to perfectly good people?

The idea that “bad things happen to good people” is not a new one. It has been talked about for a long time. But it not just one argument. I think there are (at least) two different varieties of it: the religious version, the societal version. So I’ll address both of these here.

Bad Things, Good People: The ‘Religion’ Version

Let’s first start with the religious version. This version is common in Christian circles, but there are also other religious groups having similar ideas. It goes something like this:

There have been a number of attempts to explain this, but so far, I think, no-one has really been able to explain away these questions in a way that would satisfy a reasonably intelligent person.

Some people may argue that “God does the best he can”, or something like that. But that seems foolish. I mean, if God really is omnipotent (all-powerful) and all-loving, why wouldn’t he give us what we want?

Sure, there may be reasons why God doesn’t give us what we want. But then we would very much like to hear those reasons and evaluate them to see if they are reasonable.

However, the fact of the matter, in my view, is that most (monotheistic) religions do not provide such answers, in their common philosophy or scripture. Or if they do, those answers are inconsistent, or “fuzzy”, or otherwise weak or counter-intuitive.

This is not to say that there is no personal God. There could be. But in that case it would be reasonable to expect that there also would exist a very lucid and clear presentation of why bad things happen to good people. And no (monotheistic) religion, to my knowledge, has such a presentation as part of their core account.

Bad Things, Good People: The ‘Society’ Version

Now let us look at the second version, which is the “society” variant. This version is, we might say, the “political” version, in which the God-power has been replaced with a “society-power”, of sorts. So the argument goes something like this:

As in the previous case with the religious variant, the person adhering to the societal version is also complaining about the outcome of their efforts. So, even though they have followed “the manual” of how to behave in society, it didn’t really work that well.

Thus, one might think that one isn’t enough rewarded with the things one really wants (more money, more fame, more power, more women/men, etc.). And one may also feel that one also (undeservedly) still gets a fair share of things that one doesn’t want (divorce, getting fired, terminal disease, etc.).

The “conclusion” to draw for a believer in the power of “being a good person in society” must be that either the code is wrong, or, if it’s not wrong, there must be one or several other principles at work that no-one has talked about.

The Common Denominator

So when we are revisiting these arguments we see that there, indeed, is one common denominator. And the thing that stands out, at least to me, is that there is some “behavior prescription” offered in each of these situations.

This means that the similarities between the religious variant and the societal variant basically may be understood in terms of “morality” or “ethics”. In either situation, the “follower” of these systems of thought will have to adopt the “morality” of the system of thought that he wants to accept.

In other words, the follower is adopting a morally concept of what it means to be a “good” person. Being “good”, on this moral scale, is therefore nothing that he or she is by nature; rather it is a certain behavior that he or she must “prove” to others, to the social world.

In the religious variant, the “basic” code of conduct might be “read your Bible daily, and go to church in the weekend”. In the societal variant, the “basic” code of conduct may be “go to work five days a week, and work very, very hard”.

Naturally, there are also thousands of other “rules” that are formally and informally presented to us. But most of these rules, when combined, do not bring us closer to our true goals; rather they bind us harder to society and to other people, making it harder for us to realize those things that we truly want.

Conclusion

My conclusion here is that true happiness and well-being has little to do with “morality”, whether societal or religious. In order for a person to reach (and proceed into) the positive “half” of the negativity-positivity spectrum, one must find other rules than the ones proposed by society and religion.

And one such system of thought is the law of attraction. From my point of view, for a seeker of true happiness and well-being, that is one of the most powerful ways to realize one’s dreams of a happy and fulfilling life.

Naturally, I am not here suggesting that one should “extract oneself” from one’s current situation (whether of the religious or societal variant); all I am saying is that it may be worthwhile, for honest persons who are not afraid of personal development, to start by adding a little law of attraction philosophy to their life. This may be the difference between failure and success, in terms of whether one’s life will be a happy and fulfilling one, or not.

Chris Bocay

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