Do you ever get those strange occurrences that are unexplainable but ever so casual? Like when you meet someone unexpectedly and you happen to have so much in common. Or you think about something or someone and then it happens, or you come into contact with that person.

What do you think that is? Fate, destiny, the universe, coincidence, just a random occurrence. It's almost like you can feel something about to happen, but depending on the decisions you make, something mysterious could happen.

I, for one, live for these moments! Something about it just resonates with me. I can't completely explain it, but I feel like it is meant to teach you something or get you thinking about certain things. Same goes for the other person if another is involved. Somehow your lives crossed paths for a minute moment in the infinite space we call time.

Less than an hour before sitting to write this, I was trying to decide between two topics to write about. I like many other young adults in the 21^st century, decided to take a break and scroll through my Instagram account. I came across the page of an old friend from middle school. I read the post and she was promoting her new art/business page.

I decided to send her a message complimenting her work and asking how she was doing. Shortly after I hit send, she sent me a long message starting with the sentence, "This is crazy! I was just thinking about you and your cousin!" She then went on to say that she wanted to apologize for a racist remark she made towards my cousin in fourth grade.

She explained how all these years, she'd feel sick to her stomach when she remembered it. Her mother's ex-husband was very racist and now looking back at that time in her life, she realized she had a lot of hate ingrained in her. She recalled when her mother's ex-husband made her question her own worth as her biological father was an illegal immigrant.

"That moment made me realize how wrong his thinking was. I want you to know that I have never felt that way. I really try to speak up whenever I see any discrimination." That one moment truly impacted her life in numerous ways. To me, this one scenario has a few different lessons within it.

One, hate is completely and most definitely a taught trait. Two, no matter what, the things you do and the way you feel about what you do will always stick with you, especially if it is a negative thing. The negative things in our lives and the things we don't like about ourselves or our insecurities are always in the forefront of our minds. Three, we have to learn for ourselves what is good for us and what will stay with us. If it's not good, then we have to let it go.

She carried this burden for over a decade and one day randomly she was thinking about it, I happened to want to reach out to her, and now she can finally get it off her chest. In my opinion, this was a way for her to relieve herself of the feelings that she had towards this situation. This reassures me that things happen for a reason.

No matter what, everyone and everything is connected by and affected by the smallest act, like if the whole world played a game of "Whisper Down The Lane". Eventually, the phrase would reach state to state, time zone to time zone, country to country, continent to continent, and finally everyone on the planet.

The universe is sending you your phrase. What's it saying?