Living your destiny

When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it." This is what King Melchizedek said to the shepherd boy Santiago in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. It’s a line that spells hope and defines fate. Are we really living our own destiny? Will the universe truly conspire so we can get what we want?

There seems to be truth in Melchizedek’s statement and yet it is so difficult to explain how the universe can propel you to a dream’s fulfillment. Draw a picture in your head, I’m told. Dream and live moving towards that picture. Yet I can’t seem to create that photograph. I think it goes with the apprehensions of what’s a graduate’s course of action after a school’s colloquium and a dissertation defense. Is this fear the same fear every graduate goes through and mulls over? It’s something like this – where am I going... what will I do next? My consolation is that it’s probably what Mother Country aches about, too. For sure she doesn’t know what the universe is conspiring for her and where she’s being brought to either. I see the parallelism and feel the agony. She and I are in the same wavelength searching for an "evolutionary process," some transcendental spirit, as my philosophy professor would say, to reveal itself and transform us into blessed optimists. In the hopefully short meantime, I try to recall that when you’re in doubt you must listen and speak to your heart. For in the end, it will be your heart that knows best. Best?

I have been told that each circumstance is a stage to the fulfillment of a "personal legend," but do events in our lives shepherd us towards that attainment? We’re supposed to be absolute masters of our fate and our own best decision makers. Yet are we really in control or dependent on external forces? This upcoming story of Roy makes me believe external forces like bleak moods, bad luck, for even my country’s doldrums affect me sufficiently.

On the night he was promoted, Roy went drinking and decided he could drive home in spite of his light-headedness. He hit his car and scarred his face. Did Roy want this to happen? Of course he didn’t – but he sure got cocky and challenged his fate. Just when he thought he was on top of the world he stumbled down. Did his life take a different path or was it a detour? Or was it a lesson for us not to stretch that rubber band too taut and never challenge the universe?

There have been situations in our lives, which in hindsight, seems that "the universe was conspiring in our behalf to achieve something we want." It is the opposite of some consequences that happen and make us say "it’s not meant to be." Speaking to Richard who was new at a job, he laughed as he related this story. Late for work he tried to catch the jeep at the corner. He missed the first jeep and had to ride the next one but that doesn’t roll on until it was full. He kicked himself for not running fast enough or waking up five minutes earlier. "My supervisor had warned me about being late a couple of times. I will surely be fired now." Then, a couple of hundred meters away, he saw that same jeep he had missed stalled in the road because of a flat tire. He wasn’t meant to be late after all, he sighed, and everything turned out well for him on the jeep he was riding!

Many accidents of fate can confirm the universe’s benevolence or ill omens. That there is an interrelation between events and each person’s path, and that they are guided by One is an undeniable fact.

While we brush off some incidents as flukes, others leave us stunned. The word "coincidence" is normally preceded by the word "amazing" because some higher force seems to have had a hand in our life.

I think every event happens for some mysterious unified purpose that leave us dependent on each other. How do you explain a man who goes to some vacation in a far-off country and brings home a bride from another part of the globe? Call it interdependence and convergence, for the end may have never appeared to us. All of sudden the explanation is "I met him and my life changed." There is so much that is beyond our control, and so many circumstances, coincidences and unavoidables in living our destiny.

"When we want something, all the universe conspires in helping us achieve it." Let’s look into the state of the presidency and we will find the relevance of this statement. We can argue that Gloria Arroyo’s rise to the presidency is more of destiny than reason. Running for the vice-presidency was a calculated move and, the fact is, she got her ultimate "want," the presidency. It was her ambition to follow her father’s route, her plan perhaps photographed inside her steps toward the fulfillment that the universe understood and conspired to help her achieve. A dream in consonance with the "will" of divine providence? I’d say with all her actions towards her main ambition, fate hastened it.

The most recent months have proved to be difficult for her. With Al Ghozi’s escape and the recent mutiny in Oakwood, what is the universe trying to say? That we’re traveling a detour with her? That the universe is opening our eyes to inefficiency thrust on us through her? Unfortunately, while the grand plan may already have been designed, this conglomeration of random activities leads to many revelations that must come to conclusions for us to survive and for our dreams to materialize.

Paulo Coelho’s statement best manifests itself in the world of an artist from which we can draw another parallelism. It’s not uncommon for artists to admit that they don’t have a formula in finishing an art piece, that they have some unfinished work stashed somewhere, just like each of us has some unfinished business or unresolved issues to tackle. The artist will try again and make mistakes but what the artist wants, she will eventually achieve as she willed it, because her canvas and her easel and the colors mixed in her palette come together to perfect her vision for her soul.

Living our destiny means making choices. There is no perfect blueprint in going about life. Though man’s freedom is behind every individual’s will, in the long run it seems some subtle pattern of intelligent events shows us meanings in time, with the help of serious examination and, unfortunately, hindsight. We can hit the nail on the head and figure out its message. In the meantime it also reminds us to take advantage of opportunities.

Many experiences equip us with wisdom. Some call these the work of Divine Providence while others call it destiny because no matter how willful a person’s desire to make something happen maybe it may not happen because it isn’t in accordance with the "grand purpose," even if that person has a "great design" for himself. Yet if someone desires to accomplish something in consonance with his or her will, there suddenly is no reason for it not to succeed. But now we’re back to page one – what’s our fate? Our destiny? And what is His will? It’s puzzlement!