Sunday, August 21, 2011

Stoking the fires of fate


"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her. But once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game." - Voltaire

Fate. It's the one word that makes some cringe and others squeal with excitement at the prospect that their life is already predetermined, presumably in the best of ways. But if life is just a road map that we navigate to the same destination, how do we determine which choices are really the best ones?

Choices. Another striking word that evokes some of the most stressful anxiety from our minds. We ask ourselves the simplest of questions that lead to the most complex of situations: "Is he the one?"; "Do I choose him or my career?"; "Am I ready?"

Unfortunately, life does not provide us with a top-of-the-line GPS system to assure us that we're headed in the right direction. The choices we make are left solely to our own judgment, our own peace of mind.

I have been left contemplating where my life choices have taken me in the past year, what role I've been given as a result, and how my life may be different today had I taken a different unfamiliar route. On a deeper level, I'm left to consider whether fate, that elusive word that escapes all human comprehension, really does exist?

I don't doubt that we've all found ourselves in eerie predicaments at one point or another that have left us wondering this same question. You run into an old flame on the street against all odds; your trip to the coffee shop substantiates into an earth-shattering relationship with someone who happened to be sitting next to you; you find sparks with your co-worker at a new job you were initially skeptical of taking.

And of course, you imagine what direction your life would have taken had you not taken that new job, decided to go to the coffee shop that day, or taken that particular detour you did while walking on the street. Is it possible that, despite all of our efforts, strategies and boundaries we try to layout in our love lives, that our "destiny" is controlled by something ... dare I say ... supernatural?

I've never fancied myself the type to put faith into things I can't directly see or experience, but I believe I've stumbled into the territory of what I call a "closet fater." And really, what is so unfathomable about the idea of love being beyond the realm of logic? Anyone who loves their abusive boyfriend, their husband that they know is unfaithful, or that euphorically addictive but toxic person in their life can tell you that reasoning plays little role in the dynamics of such an emotion.

In that case, maybe it is not so much fate that drives our direction in life, so much as love itself. It isn't predestined, but it is likely to pull us in one direction over another. To believe in fate, ultimately, is to believe in love.

We may not have the choice of deciding who we love or whether that love blossoms into everything we want it to be, but we do have the comforting choice to believe in fate, in all of its otherworldly glory.

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