“I don’t believe in Fate”. My fun-loving friend boldly stated over the weekend as we discussed the current state of her relationship with her long-term boyfriend. She wondered whether it was worth remaining or better to leave. Given that the good and the bad tended to cancel each other out, she finds herself neither enthusiastic nor repulsed by the relationship. Based on my knowledge of her situation, I advised her to date around, not for the purpose of finding new love, per se, but for the purpose of growth. It is my intuition that they will ultimately be together, but there’s a period of personal expansion that she needs. Growing is fate. We’re all destined to be more than we were the day before. If you ask me, fate is certainly worth believing in.
We have very little control and only two choices in our entire life. We are born into circumstance and we exist in circumstance. We don’t choose the situations we ultimately end up experiencing. We only choose whether we’re going to experience the scenario painfully or peacefully. But regardless, we’re going to go through it. And that’s that. So basically, fate is a very real thing. I use the example of death. I’m going to die. You will too, if you weren’t aware. From now until then, I have two choices: 1. To live life to the fullest or 2. To live life controlled by limits. Those are our choices. In every situation, every day, every moment. My analysis of the situation is oversimplified as there are variables that effect how we make one of those two decisions, but the point is that there are only two. When you realize and accept that, you are then easily able to disassociate yourself with the petty dramas and self-created pitfalls that accompany the weather of life.
The weather will be what it will be. Some days it will rain. The simple solution is to remember your umbrella. Protective mechanisms can only help you so far. We create walls that provide a false sense of security from the “damage” that life’s harms create. But really there is no insurance from trauma. The act of “protecting” ourselves from adversity, only prevent us from developing. Take a breakup for example. Breakups suck! The ending of what you thought would last a lifetime (if not longer) can create a myriad of negative emotions. But really, what is an ending but a beginning in disguise? Often it takes a bit of time to realize this, but once you do, everything changes. Fate may be that you two are not meant to be, and if this is the case, no matter what you coulda, woulda, shoulda done will not change the outcome. The only thing you can do is decide what will happen within you. It’s natural to mope and sulk in the beginning of a trauma, but eventually (sooner than later) you have to actively decide that you are going to be fine. And before you know it, the sun comes out again.
I always say life is like a wave, sometimes you’re in the trough, sometimes you’re on the crest. Just ride the wave. There is no such thing as good or bad. There just is. Life is neutral; only your internal state of being can be good or bad. How you react to a situation determines the situation. Not the situation itself.
I am a believer. Not in life, love and the pursuit of happiness, but in fate. Que Sera, Sera. What will be, will be.
Until next time.
3 comments:
I'm not an avid believer in "fate" per se. I think that we all have choices in the path our lives take; and that choice is determined by who we are and at what state (as a matter of personal growth) we are in. I like to think of life like the Plinko game from "The Price is Right" with the exception that you actually have a choice in what to do with each pin you hit on the way down. If a choice exists for every pin, then how can one tell me that fate brought me to this point when, mathematically speaking, the more choices I have to make that affect my life, the more possible paths I have? Now don't get me wrong, I think that a level of directional magnetism exists in each of our lives; and therefore the ending point can be narrowed by many factors. But I think that fate is more of a comfort word than a statement word.
One thing I allow myself to fantasize about is something based on a book I used to read as a child; "Choose Your Own Adventure". This book allowed you to read to certain point before providing you page numbers to turn to based on choices you made. After I reached the end of the story, based on my page turning decisions, I always wanted to go back and see what would have happened if I took a different route. I sometimes wish that I could do that with my life and other people’s lives to see how things would have been different – probably why I love the TV show “Quantum Leap” so much.
One big factor to me that dismisses fate is that your life-direction is not solely controlled by your decisions, but also by others; oftentimes, randomly impacted. I do say a lot that, "everything happens for a reason". Whether that reason is fate or an unknown understanding (at the time) of the decisions that led to that path, ultimately I don't really know...
well let me ask you this. why are you you?
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