Do you believe people enter our lives for a reason and why?

I used to believe that and up to a point I still may deep down. However, I think it’s just actually a matter of human paths intercrossing.

I think it’s just chance. When it turns out to be a very positive thing, that’s also either just chance, or it’s the result of two people making the very best of a relationship.

No, because that implies predestination and a divine planner who is good at micromanagement, and I don’t buy it.

No. However, I do believe that what happens when they meet may be very different depending on when it occurs. For instance, I might be drawn to someone as a friend now whom I would have overlooked or even disliked at another stage in my life.

I think that there is often a reason.

That presupposes a sentient being in whose mind the reason exists, doesn’t it, @marinelife? and perhaps a plan or purpose that supplies the reason for the meeting? (It’s very hard to get away from this stuff.) That’s why I don’t, unless, of course, we’re talking about a meeting that occurs after A says to B “I’d really like to meet your friend C.”

The reasons vary. Maybe they are for teaching us a life lesson. Perhaps they are to fulfill a need. You can only recognize it after the fact.

I have always believed that there is something beneficial in every person, something we can learn about, or even learn about ourselves. I don’t believe much in luck.

I think some people do enter our lives for a reason. I also believe in fate.

So—just trying to understand your view, @marinelife: are you saying that some of us exist, or act as we do, because it’s our lot to serve a purpose, fulfill a need, or teach a lesson in someone else’s life? That I may not be acting out of my own volition, or toward fulfillment of my own needs, but because I am being directed (by what or whom?) to be an actor in someone else’s script?

Yes, I do stand open to that possibility. I think some things in life are magical.

I think it is in our power to view people as having entered our lives for a reason. Everyone is a potential teacher. But I do not believe in destiny. It is still up to you how to play the cards you are dealt.

I don’t really believe that is true, nor do I believe in fate. I think our minds tend to connect things when they are merely a coincidence.

No, but I do believe that you can learn something from just about everyone you meet. I believe in serendipity.