Do You Believe in Fate?

Have you ever thought about choices, decisions you made in your life and realized that your life could've been so different? I read a quote that said, Fate is the opportunity to go right or left. Destiny is a one way street.  I have thought more than just a few times, what if I had made a different choice, what if I had passed that way a few minutes sooner, what if I hadn't been in that place at that time....etc.?

Because I believe in accountability and self sufficiency, I tend to think that we make a lot of our own fate. However, so much of life is utterly beyond our control.  I generally stand at a crossroads, when it's a major decision and ponder long and hard about what path I will choose.  The truth is, so many very small and minor decisions alter our lives enormously.  We make those blind decisions often, having no way to foresee how they will impact us. 

No question, humans make stupid choices. Sometimes, you see someone given a "this or that" choice and when they choose, you want to scream, "Are you freakin' kidding me! You choose that?"   I know that some of you would argue with me vigorously, but I thought the movie Thelma and Louise was the pinnacle of stupidity.  I mean, give-me-a-break...those ladies had been making stupid decisions through the entire movie. Then in the end, they sail off the end of a cliff in a convertible to a fiery death. I often say to my hubby, when I observe someone act with a complete lack of intelligence, "They pulled a Thelma and Louise."

Of course, things aren't always that obvious.  Perhaps, you choose to turn left instead of right, maybe you can just circle back if it's not the right way...or may-y-be it leads you into dangerous territory and there is no circling back.  Many times, I've thought about the events many years ago that changed my life for certain. The hubby's mother, newly divorced and looking for a new life for herself and her teen age son, accepted a transfer from her company. Not knowing anyone, she moved her son and herself to my hometown.  What if that hadn't been her choice or even option?  Was it my life long love and I's destiny to be together, would we in some other unpredictable way have met...somewhere, sometime? Do you have to be a romantic or a believer in fate to think so?

Personally, I don't believe that it's all written down somewhere in a heavenly tablet, what will happen in your life. I believe we have a considerable amount of control. The job you DO or DON'T take, the person you DO or DON'T marry, the drink you DO or DON'T take, the new hairdresser you DO or DON'T decide to try (Oh my goodness, have I developed a growth on one side of my head or is she blind in one eye?)  We have some control and hair does grow back out. The question is about all those other things that we seem to not be able to influence at all. 

If we choose the road to the left, will some of the same things happen to us that would've happened on the road to the right? Ah-h, my sweet partners in this mysterious existence, I do not know. These winter days cause deep thoughts. 

One of my favorite quotes is by Robert Frost---Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.