The Art of living suggest that everyone of us can change his/her life into a masterpiece. But who is really the artist of this masterpiece? Nowadays the popular answer to this question is the artist himself. Everyone of us is the blacksmith of our own luck and everyone needs to make the most of our own life. This popular answer however, is a bit haughty. Everyone of us is also at the mercy of chance. Nobody can select his own parents; nobody can choose the country were he is born. And the first person who selected his own genes still needs to be born. Still, all these factors are very determinative for who we are. We are a sum of contingencies afloat on a sea of time.
Even when we are adults and we are trying to make conscious choices, fate is still out there. The Greek philosopher Aristotle said: One digs a hole to bury a treasure and another one digs a hole to plant a tree and finds the treasure. How things will turn out in our lives is not in our own hands, we don’t have total control. Is this a bad thing? No! Knowing that you are not responsible for all the things that happen in your life can be very liberating. Knowing that fate sometimes deals you a bad card, can spare you a lot of unnecessary fretting. You did nothing wrong, it was fate. Just shrug your shoulders and be kind to yourself. Sure you could have done things differently and maybe even better, but there is no guarantee that the outcome would have been any better.
There is one big downside to believing in destiny. If you give fate a (large) role in your life, it can make you really passive. Who thinks that he can’t influence his life, can’t change his future, will not undertake steps to make something of his life. Knowing that your life partly lies in the hands of fate does not mean that you can’t change it; you can still influence the events. There are so many unforeseen events, just keep your eyes open and you will see the ones that can work in your advantage.
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