So my friend told me she believes that everything happens for a reason.

I use to believe that too, just as I believed in the coming of the four seasons.

But one day I learned that not everything happens for a reason but it can happen for a purpose, I'd contrived.

That notion was unsteady in my mind.

I was always told what she believed.

But here, this man, preached such things, and I was left feeling lost and blind.

I felt uncertain; aggrieved.

As the words left his lips,

I knew he was right.

But I couldn't put to words how I knew he was truthful.

So for months I sat silent, thinking over those words.

"Everything happens for a purpose," he said.

People blame God for striking some dead.

"Everything happens for a purpose," I repeated.

I have finally been defeated.

I see the light behind his words.

We choose our own way,

With as much freedom as the shadows in the skies of the world's bountiful birds.

And while we might fall victim to the notion that everything happens for a reason, we must see that our lives aren't on a pre-determined tract; no, we're constantly in the grey.