Fate speaks

It’s all fate, you say.

I am an easy cushion for you to fall back on. I’m the one you think of blaming when things don’t go the way you’d like them to.

Let me tell you, buddy, I’m no pushover, but I’m not likely to pull strings on your behalf either. Maybe if you struggled hard enough, I’d meet you halfway.

It’s your lazy attitude I can’t stand. Your grumbling that the odds are stacked against you, the stars are aligned against you, you were born on the wrong side of the tracks – these are just excuses, and I can see through them.

How do I describe myself? I am an overarching intelligence, but I am not averse to the growth of the least of you, even though, from my standpoint, you are nothing more than ants. I do not, of course, mean any disrespect to the ants. 

On the contrary, they hold a special place in my heart. They are always hustling about for the future, for their food stores and their colonies.

I think I may have said this to you before. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, and learn her ways.” Remember?

You tend to confuse me with determinism. Granted, that is a part of me, but that is not all there is to me. I’m not a tyrant who forces my will on you. You have your own free will, limited, of course, by your own circumstances and life’s challenges.

The measure in which you stand up to me is a measure of your success. Contrary to popular belief, and misconception, I’m not some writing on the wall written in indelible ink. With every act and thought of yours, you make your own fate. You have full editing rights to your own destiny.

I’m more like a lake, which seems placid on the surface. But every stone that is thrown into the water releases ripples that disturb the surface and forever alter the rhythms of the water.

The people who make me out to be a monster are those who are too lazy to do anything about their own lives. It seems far less tiring to moan about the obstacles I throw in their path than to get up and do something about them.

Take my word for it. Any action you’ve taken in the past, no matter how small, could have led your life down a completely different path than the one you’re on. In fact, life is a fluid, dynamic, ever changing thing.

For every ten people who die in an accident that wrecks a train they weren’t supposed to travel by but did, there are ten others who escaped death by missing that very train. And that’s not because some pre-determined Intelligence, namely, yours truly, has it in for them.

Okay, I might occasionally bring you things you don’t like or take away things you had your little heart set on, just to spice things up. There are many things that you just cannot control, but don’t let bitterness blind you to things that you can change. I can’t tell you how many times a change of attitude on your part has caused me to do a re-think.

Ultimately, your fate, your real fate, the one you make, is yours. And no one can take it away from you.