Have you ever had one of those days where everything seems to go perfectly wrong? It’s as if it doesn’t matter what you do, it feels like someone or something is conspiring against you…. like you’re being punished for something that you’ve done. About ten years ago, I got a phone call from one of my clients who was in a tough spot and he really needed to talk. He shared the following. He’d moved interstate to follow his heart, took a job offer which fell through, got evicted from his rental property and got a call from his mother to tell him that his father was on his deathbed. He booked a plane ticket home so he could go visit his father in hospital but before he got on the plane, his girlfriend…the one he followed his heart for letting him know she was no longer in love with him and had been seeing another man. Lost for words at the sheer volume of unfortunate events that had coincided I waited for him to break the silence. He simply said, “the universe is a dick”. On this point, at the time, I couldn’t disagree with him or offer any form of wisdom to counter it…so I readily adopted the phrase.

For a while, it sort of worked to shrug things off. It was a throw-away line that introduced some humour but also helped externalise what was going on. More recently, however, I’ve become increasingly aware of how framing your experience as the ‘will of the universe’ diminishes your own sense of responsibility and accountability. In other words, if I personify the universe as this entity that controls everything that happens to me, I’m very much at the mercy of the universe and any effort spent by me is therefore fruitless. In psychology, Julian Rotter called this having an external locus of control. If a person has an external locus of control, they tend to attribute the outcome to factors beyond their influence, such as the universe or god or somebody else’s fault. In contrast, those that have an internal locus of control tend to take ownership of the outcomes attributing their success or failure to their own actions. There is a body of research that suggests people with an external locus of control are happier in general because they hold a belief that there is something ‘bigger’ at play behind the fortunate and unfortunate events that transpire in their life. It’s a convenient answer to the problem that every single human being faces at some point or another, why do I exist? what does it all mean? and what am I hear to do? While I can’t answer the questions for you, I can indeed offer a perspective that might contribute to where you eventually decide to land.

The brain’s role

Indeed, what differentiates humans from other species in the animal kingdom is our consciousness and intelligence. What underpins our apparent advantage is the constant curiosity about the world and what it all means. From Darwin’s origin of species to Einstein’s theory of relativity, our brains arm us with this incredible curiosity to make it all make sense. My perspective; this insatiable need to explain every aspect of our world is the cause for much of the emptiness that people feel in modern society.

Shit happens whether you are in the driver’s seat or not. It’s what you make it mean that gets in the way. Horrible things happen to awesome people every single day...does it mean that the universe is ‘against’ them? Were they not a good person in a past life? Are they being punished for their bad behaviour? Is it bad Karma for treating others with disrespect?

The same could be said of someone who achieves greatness in the sporting arena, they can often be seen with arms outstretched looking to the skies offering their thanks to a power greater than themselves. They have attributed a portion of their success to the universe, their god or a higher being that they believe is in control of ‘the master plan’.

What’s really going on?

Take a gambler, for example, they may sit for hours on end at a poker machine anticipating the moment that they will become a winner. They create a ‘system’ for recognising patterns that they swear by. When they do have a win, it confirms their belief….we know this as the gambler’s fallacy. In fact, the gambler is suffering from a form of cognitive bias which lures the gambler into believing that their chances of winning are much higher than probability suggests. While many of us aren’t suffering from a gambling problem, the phenomenon Apophenia is another form of cognitive bias that can help explain why we need to make things ‘mean’ something. Apophenia is the human tendency to make connections between things that are otherwise unrelated. We’ve all experienced what’s commonly known as Murphy’s law or Sod’s law. This is the belief that if something is going to go wrong, it will. In fact, there is no scientific basis to explain this phenomenon other than how our brains draw connections between otherwise unrelated events.

Why do we do this?

In every culture, ancient and modern, the need to make sense of our world has been documented in myth. Joseph Campbell’s brilliant work details the patterns associated with how humans choose to document their existence over time. He mapped this common thread to articulate what we now know to be the ‘Hero’s Journey’. This pattern of storytelling is so strongly imprinted in the human psyche that movies such as Star Wars, The Matrix and Lord of the Rings can all attribute their box office success in part to Joseph Campbell’s work. In addition to our comfort with well-crafted stories, the degree to which you feel in control over outcomes or events in your life i.e. locus of control is a significant factor.

What’s the bottom line?

In my experience, when horrible things happen to me or somebody that I love, there is an overwhelming need to declare it as unfair. Feeling ripped off or hard done by is part of being human, but it really isn’t helpful. Having helped many people work through various challenges, the sooner somebody can get to the point of objectively observing what happens without judgement or the need to explain it or justify it, the better. As cold and detached as it sounds, people die, bad things happen but life goes on. If you attach meaning to what happens, you’ll spend the rest of your life in a washing machine of emotional turmoil.

How can I stop giving things meaning?

Once people recognise what’s going on, I feel it’s important to provide a practical way to help manage the challenge that comes with the insight that life is somewhat meaningless. A great technique I use is to recall an event as though it is a movie that you can pause, rewind, fast-forward or put in slow motion as desired. The trick here is to ensure that you watch the movie as though you were a critic, being as objective as possible. In doing this, you note exactly what was said (not what you thought was said), exactly what happened (not what you think happened). While this sounds easy, you’ll likely struggle to disentangle your tendency to hear what you want to hear, see what you want to see and recall events in a way that supports your conclusions. If you can just watch the ‘movie’ play out and press pause when needed, you’ll find you can take things as they are, rather than extrapolate meaning.

My insight

While I still experience the ups and downs that come with life, I no longer personify the universe by labelling it as a dick. I don’t believe that there is an almighty being writing the script that will be my life, nor that the universe is conspiring to help me achieve my purpose. The only dick featured in my past was me….not wanting to take responsibility for my own actions, accountability for my choices and choosing to blame others (or the universe) when bad things transpire. The insight experienced by the storytellers on the TV series ‘I shouldn’t be alive’ is remarkably similar for everyone, despite them having very different stories to tell. They all say they have gratitude for being alive, being able to smile, to laugh, to be with those that they love and have the freedom to make choices. There is rarely a reason or explanation behind why things happen, stop wasting your time trying to figure it all out and simply live.