Is it all for a reason?

"Everything happens for a reason"... true or false? I'd definitely like opinions on this lovely little quote right here.
Does in fact everything all happen for a reason? Because it's choices you know. We all make them. Everyday of our lives and some are more life changing than others. But what makes us take each particular path?
It's what makes us choose what we've chosen which really interests me. There's always a moment. A second in time when you can choose to say yes or no. But where does that instinct come from that pushes us one way or the other? And why is it that decisions we've made in the past are not always the decisions we choose to persue in our futures? Are we all making choices dependent on ourselves or is it the outside influences that ultimately pave the life we end up leading?
If free from a world of judgment and expectations, do you think we'd all continue to make our decisions in the same fashion as we do currently?
I'd love to see the person I would have become if these circumstances were not to be considered. Where I'd be, what I'd be doing and who I'd be surrounded by.
It's the expectations that get us I think. Send us all into a crazy spin. Causing us to fall in a domino affect of decision making. Pushing us so far down one particular road that the options become fewer and further apart. Leaving ourselves with no option of a U-turn or way back.
Often we stop making decisions for ourselves and let previous choices predict where we'll land next. What a crazy game this all is. Where's the honesty in that? It seems to get so easily lost. However, I suppose there are few in this world who are 100% honest with themselves and others who surround them. Our choices become a path we seem to be creating for ourselves... and as straight as we believe it to be, if we step back and look a little closer, often it appears to look a little more like a tightly weeved web rather than a straight line clear of any disruptions.
Given the chance, would you choose your choices the same way all over? Or would you alter your previous choices in the hopes of revealing something that could, should, or would have been had you not been so afraid to make them in the first place?
Or do you just think it all happens for a reason? End of story, case closed? This is a question I one day hope to find the answer to.