The universe is NOT out to get you (or teach you a lesson)

As I was driving down 101, I was thinking about a friend of mine, and a comment she had made about why she hadn't yet fully recovered from an injury.
"I haven't learned this life lesson yet," she explained. "I figure that once I learn what it's like to live with this injury, to slow down and accept this, that's when it will heal."
I understood why she made this comment. I could see how she might feel like she had gotten injured from working too hard or that she would heal once she slowed down and gave her body the chance to rest. In some ways, there was truth to her statement about why she hadn't healed yet. It was true that once she slowed down, she probably would heal faster.
But for me, there wasn't any truth to the idea that it was about a life lesson. For me, she was going to heal when her ligaments healed. Her ligaments had no idea whether or not she had learned this life lesson, they're just ligaments. Ligaments don't have any intentions, they aren't trying to teach you anything, they're just cells, they just heal, they're not thinking about you or holding off on their healing until you figure things out. 
Then I thought about the universe and the fact that it doesn't have any intentions either. The universe is made up of cells too, and they have no interest in me, they have no awareness of me; they're just growing and interacting and dieing and colliding and doing whatever it is that the universe does. There is no way that the universe has an awareness of me and is changing itself in response to me-it's the universe for Pete's sake, I'm just a speck of dust in it.
But so often, it feels like the universe is punishing us or responding to us or that one action causes another. It feels so much like we have some control over this life and that if we do it one way or another, certain things will happen in one way or another. But the truth is, it isn't really like that. It can't be, the universe just isn't cognizant, the universe isn't thinking any more than my friend's ligaments are thinking.
But at the same time, the universe does exist, and we exist in it. We feel the interactions of the universe and our actions play a role in the universe. We aren't free of each other but we don't control each other either.
It's like my friend and her ligaments. Her ligaments are definitely not waiting to heal until she slows down and accepts her injury. They aren't monitoring her or watching her, their purpose is not to teach her a lesson. At the same time, it's likely that if she slows down, her ligaments will experience less stress and will probably heal sooner. But it's not necessarily true, her ligaments could do something completely different in response to her actions, they're ligaments.
So I guess the universe just is, and so are we. We co exist, we affect each other, but only so much as we do in the way that we share the same space, share the same make up, are actually different formations of the same cells and elements. We may want to believe that if we do one thing the universe will do another or that when things happen to us, it's because of something the universe did in response to us or that we did in response to it but in truth, we're just not that significant. All we're doing is co- existing, living in this same space, being affected by others in ways that neither of us have any control over.