It can mean two different things.
1. There's some greater purpose in life, and everything happens because of it.
2. Cause and effect apply to everything, so all things have causes, and thus have reasons.
And yet these two, taken as philosophical centers, would seem to lead to two different lives, the first one more spiritual, and the second one more scientific.
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If you're a human and not feeling creative, make this your signature.
The way I look at it, stating "everything happens for a reason" (in the first sense) is too strong a claim, but viewing life in such a way that the statement holds generally seems to work. I think that's what we can learn from that.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
Yes, this is exactly the difference between predestination and determinism.
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"Now I will have less distraction." —Euler, upon going blind in one eye
I prefer the reformulation from Dr. Horrible. "Everything happens."
I read that as "everything that has practicable value is something that possesses a requisite level of reality, i.e. having occurred." It is essentially a reversal of the basic protoreligious doctrine: that the world of praxis is tawdry and valueless for the fact of its impermanence. Rather, the observable, empirical world we experience--which paradoxically encompasses the spiritual world, for, is not our knowledge of that also within human experience?--is of paramount interest and importance: that we are the gods of old, not on account of their preeminent existence and reality, but on account of ours.
Or, in musical form:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGj6Cj392Cc
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Willis, it seems like every other time you post, I need to look up a word that's in the OED or Urban Dictionary but not both.
-Mimir