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Addendum to Coincidence or Design

At Sunday dinner this last week, I had the obligatory conversation about the new job I just procured. This current job is fairly similar to the last one I had, just on a much larger scale and with a lot of added tasks. Anyway, my dear younger sister, being the wonderful Mormon girl that she is, became really excited after I explained that my new job was similar to the last one, and she says something along the lines of, 'There was a reason you had that last job," implying that god allowed me to have the last job so that he could allow me to have this current job. For some reason I became really frustrated with her comment, but all I could spit out was, "Not really." Smooth and witty, no? But she persisted and reiterated her declaration. After that, I shut down the conversation as quickly as I could, not really wanting to start a debate about "god's plan" and all that crap at the dinner table surrounded by my family. I'm just not that kind of person, and as much as I wanted to confront her on this idea, it's just not in my personality to do so. 

I wanted to tell her something along the lines of, "Of course there's a reason why. I applied and accepted the job offer (to both jobs)." and maybe something like, "Well sure, I was considered a better candidate at this new place because of experience at the last place, but I also had the power to say no to the offer and keep looking." (The only thing that really compelled me to accept the job offer was having been unemployed for almost a month and for being terrified of going another month without a paycheck.) Or maybe I would have said something like, "God had nothing to do with this job. If god were really in the picture, he would have stepped in a few years ago and redirected me from my stint at Nike, and maybe persuaded me to major in something more applicable than English, which would have then set me on a course to attain- in theory- an even better job than my now current job." Seriously though, if god were in the picture, why would he have set me on such a menial course in life, knowing full well that I don't enjoy this type of work? 

It's all just so dumb, and now that I see that there is absolutely no logic in believing that there is a plan for me or that there's a god pushing me in the right direction, I start to feel a level of disgust directed at myself for going through so much of my life drawing out mental maps and contributing every good step in my life as being a result of a god and every bad or misguided step I took as my own inability to listen to what god actually wanted me to do. I have no one to congratulate but myself when I do something well or make a great decision, and as much as I hate to admit it, I have no one to blame but myself for making poor choices or for not reaching what I believe to be my full potential. At times, this realisation is a very real and depressing thought, and I struggle to reconcile the feelings of betrayal and misdirection I feel that I've suffered at the hands of my former religion and that have contributed to my prior apathetic nature as far as making my life better on my own was concerned, because I realise now that it was all my own doing. I feel like I have a great impediment that I need to surmount in order to become a better person, not necessarily morally, but just generally. I want to feel good about all aspects of my life. 

(I apologise for my lack of eloquence in this post.)
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