Meaning of Life

This just came to me while running this morning:

In life, we don't choose a pre-defined path. We create our own, while leaving our footprints as inspiration for generations after us.

The more that I think about the notion that things happen for a reason, the more I disagree with it. In a way, it is condoning victimizing someone. So I was meant to be abused as a child? So I'd grow up to be strong, or know how to help others? That's a bit messed up. It just so happens that I have the strength and ability to overcome the effects of my past, and I feel that makes me obligated to help those who can't help themselves. But to say I was supposed to go through it is not really compassion. After all, things could've gone a different way and I could've turned into a drug addict as a way to escape the pain. Would that have been meant to happen?

My point is, the world is complicated and there are a lot of factors that impact an outcome. We have control over some factors and not so much over others. There are infinite possibilities for an outcome, but it's a certain chain of events that happens to lead to one particular outcome. And part of that chain of events is our decision-making, that also has infinite possibilities, but we just happen to make a decision based on some factors at a moment in time. And science and certain simple reasons cannot be ignored. But perhaps we do that at times, if we want to deny responsibility. If I trip and fall and hurt myself, it's not because it was meant to be, but because I just happened to not be paying attention at the moment and there was a rock in my path.

And hopefully we choose to learn from outcomes and try to do things better the next time.
Very few outcomes are "right" or "wrong" and hopefully we can create our own meaning from them, so that we can achieve the only thing which we can know and can control: making the earth a better place for others.