Free Will or Fate?
July 2, 2019
The debate about whether we choose or own paths or they’ve been mapped out for us has been around a long time. Longer than I have, surely. Let me be clear: I’m a firm believer that we wind up at our destinations because of the decisions we make. I’m an equally firm believer in destiny. This might seem like a contradiction, but it isn’t. We’re all meant to encounter certain people in our lives and achieve certain goals–that’s the part controlled by fate. We make mistakes along the way and not only does the nature of each mistake shape us, so does its timing and what we learn from it. That’s the part where our free will steps in. Have you ever wondered why you fell in love with that boy or girl sixth grade? Or what happened to your best friend in high school? Or why your co-worker had to die so young? And how your life would be different if events hadn’t taken those people away from you? I’ve always wondered about these types of things. But these days, I view them from a slightly different perspective. In fact, my perspective has been skewing the past few years–which is another story. I met a man four years ago. Let’s call him David. Since that time, David and I have come to learn that our paths have crossed multiple times during our lives, yet we never actually met. We came this close to meeting half a dozen times but,…