Destiny's child
When some one told me some time back that she could not answer my question right away since it was a matter that pertained to destiny, I almost blurted out that I was already subscribed to Sky Cable. Fortunately, I bit my tongue. Not only might it have been an inappropriate joke, I’m not sure if she would have gotten the humor of it anyway. As you may have already guessed, I am not someone who easily accepts the notion of my life being a “predetermined or fixed sequence of events that is inevitable and unchangeable.” I’m more of the free will kind of guy who believes that we make our own future. I believe that our successes or failures depend on the actions and decisions that we make and nothing else. Make the right decisions, succeed. Make mistakes, fail.
In ancient times, destiny was an accepted fact of life. The Greeks, Romans, and Norse, for example, believed that there were three goddesses who mystically sew the threads of our lives upon our birth. Everything that is supposed to happen to us is woven into these magical threads which can no longer be altered. Today, however, man is universally believed to possess free will. It is that free will that makes us truly human and gives us the ability to control our future. Therefore, if free will exists, then there can really be no such thing as destiny or fate. In an attempt to reconcile the concepts of destiny and free will, some argue that up to the point that we make a decision about something, we still have multiple destinies. In that sense, we possess free will. However, once you commit yourself to a particular action, then that path will lead you to only one fixed outcome. For example, I am free to choose any of the three stars of the R&B gal trio, Destiny’s Child, and ask them to marry me. However, once I commit to offer Beyonce Knowles the ring, then there could only be one inevitable result. Of course, my only possible destiny there would likely be that she would turn me down (as probably would have been my fate with Michelle Williams, and Kelly Rowland as well). Kidding aside, however, and as comparatively logical as this line of thought might sound, one can easily counter-argue that it may have been one’s destiny to choose a particular path in the first place and so the discussion can also go on endlessly.
Free will and the supernatural nature of destiny make belief in it more of a romantic notion or a superstition nowadays. At worst, it is seen by others as an emotional or psychological crutch that is used to soften the blow of failure. Indeed, when things go wrong, it is soothing to think that there was nothing that you could have done better or differently as it would not have mattered the result was already predetermined. But what if you make mistakes, make wrong decisions, and yet still succeed? Or what if you do everything correctly, make all the right decisions, and yet you still fail? Can these be all explained as simple coincidences or (good/bad) luck rather than destiny? I am just about to complete a project where I felt I made so many lapses in judgement. Epic failure seemed to be a foregone conclusion. I gave it everything I had and it drained me physically and emotionally. Yet despite all my errors and worries, it now appears that everything just might work out after all. And that had I not made the mistakes I made in the first place, the cause that I tried to help might now even be in a worse situation. Another person came up to me and explained once more that this was a matter that pertained to destiny. This time, I did not make any jokes.
I think I‘m still a free will kind of guy. And I still don’t know what to make out of this thing they call destiny. But I now think that it’s much more than just a superstition. Maybe destiny is like the wind and we are all like that famous feather in the movie Forrest Gump. Sometimes, destiny is a cool gentle breeze that caresses us to sleep. On other occasions, however, it can be a howling fury that violently throws us all over the place. Either way, we are powerless against it. It will take us where it will take us and there’s nothing we can do about it. But what we do along that journey how we use our free will and act out our lives regardless of the outcome that is what will ultimately define our humanity.
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