There’s No Such Thing as “Fate”

But here’s the clincher: it was one of my last days of college and I was confused as to what career I should pursue because I was talented in two areas: engineering and accounting and I wasn’t sure which one to concentrate in. Anyway, I was walking through the college campus thinking of this when I saw Jane with her boyfriend. I walked up to her and said I have a question. Jane immediately interrupted me and said, “You were going to ask me what you should pursue, engineering or accounting. You should go into accounting.”

I was aghast. I was just thinking it and Jane immediately read my mind.

Anyway, back to “there being no such thing as “fate”.”

Jane told me that when she advices people, she knows it can have an effect because she sees different “future paths” for each of us. She said, if we choose to do one thing, she’ll see a different future occurring as compared to us choosing something else. Thus she’s been able to advise people to avoid disasters that she sees will happen. For example, she advised a friend of mine that he’ll get a girl pregnant in college so he should be very careful and use contraceptives. Another friend she saw suffering through a car accident so she told him to avoid riding in a red car (sometimes her visions aren’t clear enough to give a car’s make or model).

One time, I was at a party and I stepped out of the party house’s den. When I crossed the door, I saw Jane with her boyfriend and she seemed to have a headache. Her boyfriend called me over and Jane said, “You know, usually I’ll see different possible futures. But in your case, I actually saw you doing the same thing in all your possible futures, which was, to step out the den. I saw you like step out six times! This is really strange–I usually see people do something different in each future, but in your case, you chose to do the same thing in every single one!”

So it turns out our past and present are like a line and the future has many forks on the line (right after the present). Depending on which path we take, we can completely alter our future. So Hitler didn’t have to kill all the Jews. He chose to do it. He wasn’t “fated” to do it. The racists in the South didn’t have to lynch all the African Americans. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld didn’t have to kill and maim all the innocent soldiers and Iraqis. They didn’t have to torture all those men–they chose to do it.

Aside from fate though, from what I’ve read, there’s also a thing such as the inter-relatedness of things, so that the world can actually be affected by our “passions”. If we want something strongly enough, it can actually have an effect in the world to maybe help us achieve it. This, I don’t have any definite proof of–I’ve just read anecdotes of people who seem to “affect” the world around them to help them achieve what they’re passionate about. Like Richard Bach (the guy who wrote “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”) in his book, “One”: he talked about always wanting to learn to fly (a plane) but he was not rich and there was no airport near where he lived, and then one day in college, he just happened to be standing beside a guy during archery class. A plane passed by overhead and they both looked up at it, and this led to Richard finding out that the guy was studying to be a flight instructor and he needed to teach a couple of more students before he could get his license so he was willing to teach Richard for free! What are the odds right? Still, it was Richard’s choice to never give up on his dream of learning to fly. He could have just as easily given up on it but because he didn’t, he was able to change his future and achieve it.

So remember, no more excuses. You’re the master of your fate.