“If you are willing to settle for less, less will be your destiny.”
Well, that’s as profound as it gets for me anyway.
Over the past few days in the course of conversation with a couple of different friends the concept of destiny reared its ugly head. As usual, the context was “well, that didn’t turn out the way I hoped, but it must be destiny.” Of course, destiny is the twin sister of “God’s will”. Well, I ain’t buying it.
I recall my final appearance in Sunday School at the First Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina. The lesson that day was about how God had granted mankind “free will”. At the conclusion of class there was an announcement that there would be a march to the statehouse in support of more restrictive abortion laws. I was sincerely confused and so I raised my hand and asked “if God has given us free will, why would you want to pass a law taking that away?” I was met with a blank stare and after a few seconds was told “it’s a matter of faith”. I took it on faith that there was no point in my returning.
The point is that if we have free will to make decisions in life there can be no outcome that is our destiny. If what happens in our life is preordained, it wouldn’t matter what road or course of action we decided to take, we’d always wind up in the same place. Bullshit.
The things that happen to us in life, good and bad, are not “destiny” they are the result of the choices we make. Yeah, call me Captain Obvious but I’m tired of hearing “sorry, it was just our destiny that we arrived in this fucked up place”. No, we are where we are because we chose through our deeds a course of action that led us here.
I’m taking a new path (in 28 days!) that will lead me to a different future. And as I move forward I’m very cognizant of the fact that the choices I will make along the way are critical if I am to achieve my goal of living a contented and comfortable life in the Philippines. In short, I can’t let myself fuck up again. There are many traps, pitfalls and obstacles along the road to happiness. I’ll have to be patient and cautious as I move forward and choose wisely among the options that will present themselves.
I remain confident that the love of my life is out there and that she will find me one day. It’s my destiny.
I’ve been looking for a lover
But I haven’t met her yet
She’ll be nothing like
I pictured her to be
In her eyes I will discover
Another reason why
I want to live
and make the best
of what I see.
Where the sun hits the water
And the mountains meet the sand
There’s a beach
that I walk along sometimes
And maybe there I’ll meet her
And we’ll start to say ‘hello’
And never stop to think
of any other time.
Looking’ for a love
that’s right for me
I don’t know how long
it’s going to be
But I hope I treat her kind
And don’t mess with her mind
When she starts to see
the darker side of me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFs_4N5PU28
When the war was over, the post-WW2 French existentialists looked around at all the blasted churches and cathedrals and concluded that God had failed humanity and, further, that the universe was therefore absurd and devoid of inherent meaning. The ethical conclusion that the existentialists drew was that, if meaning was to be found, it was to be found in the making of one’s own choices, the building of one’s own life.
“Existence precedes essence” was the battle cry of this group of philosophers: you can’t completely become who you are until you’ve reached the sum of all your choices, and that doesn’t happen until you die. So, up until that terminal moment, we’re engaged in the project of building ourselves through the constant making of choices, the exercise of our free will. We are born; we exist in this world; we make choices; when we die, we are the sum total of all those choices, and have thus arrived at our essence. Existence precedes essence, and it’s up to us to create our own edifices of meaning.
Good journey as you find your path along the ever-branching tree of possibility! And may you build a mighty edifice.
Wow, another amazing, educational, and thought provoking comment Kevin. Really appreciate it. Thanks for your support!
I believe in saying…life depends on how we make it…but this guy I knew here that is so arrogant would not accept that saying…he said things happen sometimes beyond our control and lead us to how we are at present…hmmm…
MJ, arrogant and stupid. If he never takes responsibility for his life he will never have control. Wise of you to move on.