Destiny

(Prompt taken from Room to Write by Bonni Goldberg)

Today, begin by copying the word destiny in your own handwriting and see where it takes you for two pages. Or, record a dialogue between the characters in one or two of your pieces on their beliefs about destiny.

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"Our wills and fates do so contrary run that our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own." ~~ William Shakespeare
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I think I believe that destiny is a mix of free will and fate. Throughout our lives we have so many choices to make and I believe those choices lead us to our fates. I can choose to take my son to school every morning and fate may get us there on time or it may not. I also think fate is relative. We don't attribute fate to the mundane things that happen in our lives, like getting the kids to school on time, but we casually toss the word around when something catastrophically bad happens or when something exceptionally good happens. But think for a minute how many times destiny may intervene and we don't realize it. I could have left the house just forty seconds early one summer day going to visit my mother and it could have been me and my son who were in the roll over accident at the four way stop. Was it my destiny to avoid the accident? I guess we'll never know.

As a kid I guess I leaned more toward destiny as fate. It is what every little girl fantasizes about; you're a princess in a big castle and one day Prince Charming comes to rescue you. In one sense I understand how believing in fate can be taken to the extreme to the pint you do little outside of survive because you're waiting on fate and destiny to find you, but while you're waiting on life to find you, the world is passing you by. If you want to realize your potential, you need to give destiny a push in the right direction and make it happen.

Right now I am waiting on fate to find me. Hoping through some holy, unexplained miracle to be a published author some day, but without submissions, I am doing little more than waiting for nothing. I can't expect success or failure to find me if I don't go looking for it.

Fate is not tangible. Destiny cannot be held in your hands and studied. It is a lot like faith; you cannot see it or hear it but you can feel it and perhaps you feel it most when you perceive a lack of it in your life.

I have noticed I keep referring to destiny as fate. I'm not sure if that is the writer in me or the person in me. Most of my stories have a mixed belief of fate/free will. I think very rarely do I mention it, but is is always lurking in the plot just below the surface.

Believing in fate makes you a hopeless romantic; the kind of person who believes if you ride the subway at the same time to the same destination every night for twenty years, you'll meet that guy who gave you his number but you washed the jeans and never got to call him. He'll find you on the crowded subway car and tell you he hasn't stopped thinking about you for twenty years.

Believing in free will makes you a realist, but what fun is it to believe that life isn't some cosmically predestined event that we all happen to be attending?

Sounds to me like believing in fate makes a much better story and much more flavorful life.