Happier Abroad Forum Community

I have a question about reincarnation. Do we choose our lives on Earth? If so, wouldn't everyone choose to be born rich, attractive, healthy and with an easy life? Who would choose to be born as a starving child in Africa who dies after a few years? What would that accomplish? A sick child causes a lot of grief to their parents. Who would choose to do that?

Also, what if everyone chose the same life, how can there be enough "great lives" to go around? Wouldn't most be forced to be born in poverty since most of the world is in poverty?

I read a book about astral planes, and it said that after we die, the plane that we are attuned to will be where we end up, the good go to higher planes, and the bad go to lower planes, etc. But most people are not all good or bad. They are a mixture of good and bad qualities. A lustful person might be a kind loving generous guy who has a good heart with basic morals. So where would he end up, if he has a mixture of wholesome and unwholesome traits? Would they be tallied to see which side was higher?

If departed spirits can hang around Earth for a while to be contacted by mediums, then how does that reconcile with the idea that beyond the physical plane, time as we know it does not exist and is not governed by clocks? If there is no time in other planes, then why would they only be around for a finite time? Wouldn't they have an eternity to hang around if they wanted to? I can't comprehend this. New Age books I've read mention both of these concepts but do not reconcile them.

Also, why don't mediums like George Anderson, who have a very impressive record, try to solve mysteries by contacting deceased spirits like Jimmy Hoffa to find their body. Or Lee Harvey Oswald to uncover the truth about the JFK assassination, etc.? Or contact Barbara Olsen to find out what happened to her on Flight 77 on 9/11, which is missing and probably didn't crash into the Pentagon since there were no significant pieces of debris, and not even the engines made of titanium steel, which can withstand anything, survived. There are too many discrepancies about Flight 77 and unknowns. Why don't mediums try to get to the bottom of such mysteries?