By
Syed Ali Mehdi
"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves."
Four centuries ago when William Shakespeare wrote these famous words in his play Julius Caesar, the audience stood perplexed, astonished and puzzled, puzzled by the complexity of the claim before them. Four centuries later, man has reached the moon, man has understood the gene but man is once again as puzzled by this very basic question, as perplexed and lost as it ever was. Are we slaves of fate or masters of destiny? Is fate a long road already set out, unconquerable, immovable? Or is it a work of art, a sculpture waiting to be designed, nurtured and molded by the mighty hands of Man?
Even the most fanatic supporters of fate accept that Man has at least, an illusion of free will, that he can move his arms as he wishes or close his eyes when he likes, but where the question arises is, we have all, at one time or another found ourselves faced by consequences that we didn’t desire, results that seem, not to be our own, the question is “How to explain this”? Some claim this can only be explained by a supernatural force that we like to refer as “Fate”, however there is a simpler explanation, one that doesn’t involve divine scriptures written by virgins of the lord Apollo and hence forth told by his son the Taurus and Libra.
Our world today is complex and interconnected. It is hard to realize where the ripples of our actions would be felt and each decision out of free will that we make effects someone, somewhere, somehow that we cannot feel or understand. This is inherently the answer to all those events that happen out of the blue. Our world is basically one giant ball of decisions and their consequences, not governed by any one force. All the events that we see, are basically the aftermath of those choices that we make.
Let us consider a very simple event that nobody wants, you were trying to cook food but it got burned. Now was this fate? Perhaps not, Actually what happened was that your friend texted you about a really good program that was airing on star world and you went to watch that program and so got distracted, coincidently right after that program you surfed the channels and what do you know, you found something interesting to watch. It was only after you smelled the stink did you realized that your food is actually burnt. So you see, it was actually choice after choice that burnt your food, rather than fate.
The most important point to understand is that, our will, our desire empowers any and all, decisions and choices made by others. If we, with the depth of our hearts set about to do something we can actually overcome all odds and that achievement would not be of fate, but our own. It is the determination of man and his resolve that has the ability to, shape fate, because fate itself is a non existent monster created by losers of this world, to justify their failures.
Consider the example that we used before, if you had enough determination and will to make your food properly you would have been able to divert off any distractions and would have made your food properly.
Fate is basically a cloth, weaved by our choices and our will, it is up to our actions and our decisions to decide how we want to design our fate. Those that leave it for fate to decide their destiny, have left their lives at the mercy of others decisions and that surely, cannot be good, so stop reading horoscopes and concentrate on making your life as good as possible.
