on Fate....

I've always believed in Fate
Especially when my days are dark with despair
and when the losses seem to far outweigh the gains

Fate rules the affairs of mankind with no recognizable order
Seneca

I thought that the course of our lives was mapped out for us before birth and that, give or take a few sudden side-steps and the occasional ducking out of view as we hide from Her (her?) gaze in the long grass, we would be under Her constant scrutiny.
Helpless to change our fate.

Let us follow our destiny, ebb and flow. Whatever may happen, we master fortune by accepting it.
Virgil

I think this is why I also believe very strongly in karma.
Our daily actions, good and bad, are weighed in a scale upon which our future happiness, or otherwise, is determined.

Sometimes I even believe in the continuing karma of previous existences although the scientist in me, the girl who pored over electron micrographs of mitochondria and watched, in fascination, films about the birth of stars, the moment of conception, the inner-most workings of living creatures, shies away from such 'unfounded superstitious thinking'.

But how else thought to explain our sense of ease with certain people
our feeling of familiarity in strange locations
our passion for certain places?

and if, as science tells us, energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred, then it makes sense that when we die our life force isn't extinguished but rather migrates to a new home
even if that new home is only the west wind

I digress...
So, Fate
Can we change our 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

We are the product of everything that has ever happened to us, and to the world around us
We are changed daily, every passing nanosecond with each heartbeat, by the external forces that touch us
and by our own, unseen, reactions to them

Especially by our thoughts about them
which are, at the basic level, merely electrical impulses sparking in our brains

Now I no longer believe that Fate has mapped out the course of our lives before our birth
I believe that we are born bearing a map of possible paths
Fate may push us in one direction, She may guide us down another road or She may suddenly present us with a brick wall or an overgrown and tangles path
But I believe that we have the ability to climb the wall or push through the undergrowth if that's what we really wish and if we have the courage to say "This is MY life, my path, my direction, and I WILL continue despite these challenges"

One meets his destiny often in the road he takes to avoid it.
French Proverb

Who knows?
Perhaps Fate isn't really Fate at all
But instead just a manifestation of our own fears and insecurities

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate
Henry David Thoreau

So, today I awoke feeling lighter
Today I decided that, to hell with Fate
Today I am going to chart my own course
Today I am going to start venturing off the map and into new territory
Today I am going to take control and steer my own destiny

Sow a thought and you reap an act;
Sow an act and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and you reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.
Ralph Waldo Emerson