Everything Happens for a Reason / Todo pasa por algo

August 15th 2025

"Todo pasa por algo!" Asi dicen.  Pero en este dicho confunden la causa con el propósito.  Todo pasa por algo, si.  Pero ese "algo" no es nada de la magia.  Ese "algo" bien puede ser simplemente porque tú la cagaste.  Pero eso no importa.   La causa no importa.  Porque la causa ya pasó!  Lo que importa ya es el propósito, no la causa.  Todo pasa para algo.  Y ese algo es lo que cuenta.  

 "Everything Happens for a reason."  In this popular saying people confuse cause with purpose.  Everything happens for a reason, yes.  But this reason is not necesarily special or magical .  This "reason" might just be because you fucked something up.  (Or luck happened, but often it's because you fucked up.)  But the reason is not important, because it's in the past.  What's important is the purpose.  Everything happens for a purpose.  And that's what counts.  

My Religion

Jan 1.  2025

I used to have an online dating profile where I stated my religious views as Buddhist, Catholic, Christian, Hindu, Spiritual, and Other.  I often got asked, how I can be a member of all these faiths traditions at the same time?

Buddhism is not a faith tradition.  It's a non-theistic maintenance manual for the human condition.  I discovered Buddhism for myself through a book called Refuge Recovery, a Buddhist Path to Recovering from Addiction.  And so I am a Buddhist because I follow a Buddhist path.  What does it mean to follow a Buddhist path?  #6 in the Buddhist Eightfold Path is "Right Effort."  This is the most important for me,.  What Right Effort means to me is that nobody is going to solve our problems for us, including the problems of inner mood and inner worries.   But activities like exercise, yoga, meditation, organizing and maintaining our spaces, grooming, paying our bills, etc. all require effort, and performing that effort, combined with a life consistent with the other seven spokes of the wheel, will lead to a release from suffering.   There is no escape from the grind.  You can pray and believe all you want.  but we must accept that as long as we are alive we must be constantly swimming upstream, fighting entropy and decay, and that it's not automatic, but takes effort.  Because we have been given free will, we have to choose to make the effort to live well.  And by making the effort, we improve our well-being.

I am a Catholic because I was born into a Catholic family.  My grandmother was born and baptized in Wadowice, Poland, the same birthplace of Pope John Paul II.  My parents graduated from St. Mary's College and the University of Notre Dame, and were married on campus in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.  I went to a Catholic grade school and then a Jesuit high school.  I loved it and I felt at home.  The saints were my heroes.  The Kennedys were my heroes.  The crusaders were my heroes.  Even the conquistadors were my heroes.  I still appreciate it and I can even feel a little defensive whenever the Faith and Church are criticized.   The uplifting art, architecture, and music, and sense of community were just as important to me as the religious teachings.  In spite of the scandals, the abuse, the confusion, I believe that Catholic Christianity has been a force for good in the world. 

But even as a child I mumbled through the Nicene Creed and eventually just kept silent because I was never sure I believed in it.  And eventually I found that my confusion and lack of conviction in believing that Jesus Christ is the same as God, combined with Christianity's limited cosmovision in a world full of more diverse experiences and traditions, drove me out of the Church.

I still believe in good and evil and that we are all born with original sin - that we are all sinners, never perfect, and that we can achieve redemption and salvation through faith and good works.   I'm not sure how healthy or correct those beliefs are.  They have caused me a lot of torment.

But the most fundamental element of Catholicism is the Gospel, which contains the teachings of Jesus.  And I am a Christian because I believe in the teachings of Jesus, and in Christian values.  I believe in radical love, radical generosity, and radical forgiveness,  I believe in the power of faith. I believe that the true meaning of Justice is treating your neighbor as you would yourself.  

I believe that God is everywhere and in all things.  I believe in reincarnation and I practice yoga.  

I believe that there is a spirit world, and that this world is a shadow of that world.

I believe in the beauty of nature, and the sacredness of natural spaces.  I believe the presence of our benevolent Creator can be found in those spaces and that when we abuse nature we are not only committing a moral crime, a crime against our creator, but that we are also causing injury to ourselves, because we are part of nature.  

My Dating Life Blog #2

The need to be comforted

The need to be comforted is the root of addiction.  It is also the root cause of anxious attachment, neediness and restlessness.  

Wanting to drink alcohol is like needing to suck on a baby bottle or a breast.  The Nicaraguans know this.  That's why they use the word "mamar" to talk about how an alcoholic drinks.  And when someone is drunk they say he is "mamado" as slang for "tomado" (literally "drunk").  Because mamar is really what you are doing when you drink alcohol (especially out of a bottle.)  You're sucking on a tittie for comfort.  This is the root of the oral fixation so common in many addictions.  So even after we break the chemical addictions to our substances and the social habits built around them, we will never get anywhere until we realize that at the core, the deeper issue is that we are still infants emotionally.

Though we may never fully overcome it in our lives, the need to be comforted and validated at any level is childish.  It's the definition of being a child, literally dependent on others for nourishment, protection, and guidance.  If the purpose of life is spiritual growth then we must first get past the stage of child-to-adult.  Going through that stage from child to adult requires not only letting go of  your child identity and feeling comfortable with change.  We stop drinking our mother's milk at two years old.   But at what point we achieve this weaning in a fully integrated way is a different story.  At some point, ideally, we stop snuggling up in our parents' bed, then leave our parents' house.  For some sooner, for others later, we stop relying on them financially.  We no longer cry for our mothers to come to us when we get sick.  But we replace our emotional dependence on our parents with emotional dependence on other dopamine and oxytocin inducing substances, habits and relationship patterns.  Thus the oral fixations, and the toxic cycles of anxiety and comfort.  We are trying to suck our mother's milk through a crack pipe.

When psychologists talk about "nurturing your inner child,"  It commonly misunderstood to mean to indulge in childish thoughts and actions or to infantilize yourself.  It actually refers to the complete opposite behavior.  It refers in fact to leading your ego with structure and kindness as a parent would develop a child.  

The transition away from being a child naturally goes hand-in-hand with taking on a provider role.  Of course when we literally take on the role of a provider we don't automatically grow out of our childish behavior.   There are plenty of alcoholic parents.  There is even the disease of co-dependency.  But growing into the mentality of a provider is a natural companion of growing out of neediness and addiction.  This is why the 12th step of the Anonymous programs is service to others.  And for me personally it's why group sessions are so therapeutic.  They force me to give my undivided and unlimited attention to other people for a moment, and for that moment life is not all about me.

While being of service to other recovering addicts, codependents, trauma sufferers, etc is the most direct and obvious way of reversing the roles and finding purpose, it overlooks that being a provider and living a life of service is also living your purpose in any vocation.  Someone who lays tiles for a living can either have a child's mentality of "When do I get paid?" or a service mentality of "How much value can I provide with my skills today?  How can I do excellent work today?"  Which one of these mentalities is going to have a better day?  Which one is likely to earn more and have better relationships?  Which one is more likely to drink themself to sleep tonight? 

It's important to recognize that part of what makes it difficult to grow out of this delayed immaturity is that it's not a natural.  We get trapped in it precisely because it's not a natural place to be, so therefore we don't grow out of it naturally either.  Biologically we are set up to be adults at age 15 - 18.  But our modern cultures infantilize us and push us into an unnatural delayed immaturity.  And so from there we need to do some work to figure things out.  

Thankfully we are not the first, and regrettably we are not the last, to go through "recovery."  There are many tools and traditions available to guide us.  But ultimately we will not succeed until we understand that other people are not responsible for our recovery.  Not even God is responsible for our recovery.  God gave us free will.  We can pray for knowledge of His will for us and and the power to carry it out.  But whether you believe in God or not, it's still our individual responsibility to choose our thoughts, words, actions, and attitude. 

Once we recognize this, that we are 100% responsible for ourselves, it no longer becomes a burden or a source of anxiety.  It becomes an opportunity, or even a relief.  It is a choice that we are blessed to have, to either get up and swim against the stream or to give in to the forces of natural entropy that drag us down into decay.  

Referring again to the Anonymous programs, note that service to others is the 12th step, not the first.  We can't successfully take on the role of the provider until we are able to get past our childish neediness and dependence.  And that growth only comes through abstinence and discomfort.  Through abstaining we create a vacuum that can be filled with growth.  We learn that we can live without the comfort and instant gratification from substances, habits, and toxic  relationships.  On the contrary we learn that in the absence of these instant-gratification behaviors, (and only in their absence), we will naturally build resilience, strength and creativity.  It's automatic.  Just like physical strength is built by pushing yourself out of your physical comfort zone, emotional strength develops on its own when we choose not to seek comfort in our addictions and compulsions.  Every time we choose to swim against the stream through the void, we transform and grow.

As adults with agency, we become co-creators of our worlds.  And in order to create, there must be emptiness.  So we must seek emptiness.  And eventually instead of frightening us, the emptiness will inspire us.

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What is the difference between and addiction, a compulsion, and a habit?  

A compulsion is a hypnotic, subconscious, powerful, and false belief that we have no choice but do whatever XYZ action that our brain is leading us towards.  But it is indeed a false belief.  We don't actually have to do the thing we think we have to do.  We are driven by compulsions because we know the outcome, and knowing the outcome gives us comfort.  We know how we will feel if we smoke another cigarette or pluck all our eyebrows out.  We know what will happen if we indulge in our anger and blow up at someone or put them down.  

But we don't know what will happen if we pause and remain silent, or if we go to sleep without a drink.  What will happen?  Will we fall asleep?  Will tomorrow come?  Will a monster come into our room?  What will happen if instead of sending a rude or "passive/aggressive" text message, we just walk away?  More importantly, what will happen to our craving to do this?  What will happen if the craving never goes away?  Or what will happen if the craving does go away?  (Which one are we really more afraid of?)  We are in fact like the slave, who chooses to remain with his master even after his chains are broken.

To break the chains of compulsion we must step into the void and discomfort of the unknown.  

There are several tools that we can draw upon to aid ourselves in being in the unknown space away from our compulsive behaviors.  One is prayer.  Prayer is powerful but it has drawback.  One drawback is that it is not available to everyone.  For some individuals, any type of reference to theology is a no-go.  For others the drawback is the opposite.  They are over-reliant on prayer at the expense of other pathways.  

A second tool is to focus 100% on present surroundings and tasks.  Anxiety or depression do not exist in the present.  Radical acceptance of the present and oneness with the present moment can be powerful in allowing us to let go of attachment to our thoughts and emotions and the compulsion to escape and "be" somewhere else.

Meditation is the third and most powerful tool in overcoming the hypnosis of compulsion.  To train yourself to let thoughts come and go without interrupting the simple purpose of sitting still and focusing on the breath or mantra is to understand that we are both more and less than just our thoughts, feelings, and cravings.  They come and go, flowing into and out of us, out into the world and in from the world, our pasts, our dreamscapes.  But they are distinct from the present moment.  Through training and practice we can become capable of feeling comfortable in the discomfort of the void, until we gradually fill that void with our own immutable truths.  We won't need to seek to rely on our compulsions for our nourishment because we have built our own set of hunting tools and we have planted our own gardens. 

As you practice overcoming compulsions and letting go of thoughts and feelings, you begin to realize that our thoughts, feelings, and cravings are not as real or precious as we think they are.  Here is the proof:  

When you interact with another person, you don't know what they are thinking.  You only experience what they do or say, and vice versa.  Nobody cares whether or not you are craving a drink, or whether you have a chip on your shoulder, or about the big idea you have that you've never taken action on.  They don't even care if you are sad or in pain unless you express it.  How would they even know?  So my point is that your emotions in this instance are not real to other people.  You exist, but your emotions don't.  Your thoughts and emotions are not a precious currency to hoard or hold onto.  They have no scarcity and therefore no value.  Unlike physical matter, they can be created and destroyed at will. 

When you watch a boxing match, is the winner the one who feels less pain or who feels the most superior?  No, the winner is the one who is the most skilled at overcoming his pain, overcoming his doubt.  Is a surgeon going to botch his surgery because he had an argument with his wife that morning?  No, of course not.  He lets it go and focuses on the present moment, because that's what adults do.  Yes, your thought patterns and beliefs are part of who you are.  But what you actually do, the actions you take; are at least as important in defining the essence of who you really are.  You can choose your actions.  You can to choose your thoughts as well, though it's more challenging.  But certainly, and it's been proven, you can choose your attitude.

So If you don't smoke another cigarette, you will suffer withdrawal for a while, but the world will be ok.  Nobody will care how you felt about it.  In fact if you share how hard it is, people will think less of you, not more of you.  That's how trivial and unimportant your feelings about it are.  If you decide to work out instead of staying in bed, your lazy self that wanted to stay in bed will not suffer.  He will stay there waiting for you the next morning.  Don't feel bad for him.  Take the one that wants to go out for a jog out for a jog.  Nobody will notice and ask, "Wasn't it hard to get out of bed?"  

Your feelings don't matter to anyone.  So why should they matter so much do you?  Let them go.  Embrace the void.