The One Thing…You Need to Know About Random Acts

The one thing you need to know about random acts is that they really don’t exist, at least not in the way that we pretend they do.  “Random” is really a matter of perspective.  As observer, we can judge acts as random, but that judgment is biased.  We observe the world through filters, and our filters often keep us from seeing the world from the point of view of other people.  So, when we determine that an act is random, we are really just affirming our own ignorance and disconnectedness from the source and motivation behind the act.

If you’re the actor and not the observer, then the nature of the act changes.  There are no more filters.  There is only the act and the actions, thoughts, and beliefs that paved the way for that action to occur.  The act becomes deliberate.  It becomes a choice, not just an act.  Every human action is a deliberate choice, one in an on-going series of actions that take us from cradle to grave.  Thus, there are no random acts.

There is probably a line somewhere that psychologists draw that would refute my assertion and prove with certainty that the human mind is capable of truly random acts.  I’ll concede the point.  However, this line…it divides such a tiny subset of action from the greater accumulation of human actions that the other side of the line, the random side, is statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of all things.  What you are left with is the conclusion that the notion of a random act of human behavior is a lie that we tell ourselves to help make us feel better when we have no explanation for the “why” behind an occurrence.

Like I said…no random acts.

Why is this matter?  It matters because ignoring truth and pretending the world is anything other than what we know it to be is often referred to as “delusion.”  Delusion is the enemy of consciousness, thus the enemy of true happiness.  If we pretend that random acts exist, then we give away a piece of our ownership over our lives.  While outside forces may influence the manner in which our unique journeys unfold, ownership for the paths taken ultimately belongs to us.  No random acts to explain what we refuse to accept, and no random acts to explain the actions we may regret.