When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Yes, it's true, bad things happen to good people. But it's also true that...

GOOD things happen to BAD people.

And, BAD things happen to BAD people.

And yes, even GOOD things happen to GOOD people.

It's called life, folks.

I'm tired of hearing all the Law of Attraction "experts" say that we somehow attracted the bad events in our lives. It all started with The Secret. And while I believe the intentions in that movie were good, and the intentions of those still parroting this message are probably good as well, I believe the oversimplification and misunderstanding of this "law" is hurting innocent people.

When you constantly tell people they attracted their misfortune, I believe you condemn them to trying to figure out what they did to deserve it.

And THAT is wasted energy.

Because perhaps they did NOTHING.

Why not instead encourage them to focus on determining what they can learn from the bad situation? What good can come from it? How can they move forward wiser, more caring, more authentic, more... [fill in any positive adjective]?

By constantly telling people their energy or beliefs or mindset are responsible I don't believe we are helping them grow. Because if you can't for the life of you figure out why you attracted something, you can't change it.

I'd just like to ask you to think about a few things before jumping on the "you attracted it" bandwagon...

Did Hurricane Sandy victims attract the devastation caused by this super storm?

What about the victims of...

Hurricane Katrina?

Bernie Madoff?

The mortgage industry crisis?

James Arthur Ray?

Cancer?

Rape?

I suppose some might argue that our world is being punished for its missteps through these occurrences. But I think anyone would be hard-pressed to argue with the fact that many innocent and undeserving people have been harmed by these events and people.

If we stop blaming mindset or energy and start looking at what we can do AFTER these occurrences I believe we'll all be better off.

Can the victims of these people and events learn and grow from them? Can they become stronger? Can these events bring out the good in people? Yes. Yes. And YES!

I'd like to see us focus more on how we can move forward from these disasters (and the "minor disasters" that happen in our daily lives) rather than feeling bad that we somehow attracted them, or spending all our energy trying to figure out how we can change so we don't attract them again.

I'm all for focusing on the positive and paying attention to your thoughts, but...

The bottom-line is LIFE HAPPENS. And so does that other four-letter word.

And as my parents always told me, life is not fair.

Good things will happen to bad people. And bad things will happen to good people. We can't change that. Instead, why not choose to focus on making the most of the one life we've been given... and accepting the good, the bad, and the ugly and simply trying to learn and grow from it all?