Do I have control over my destiny?

On one bleak Tuesday morning in late January this year, a bunch of school friends and I are briskly heading towards the examination center to sit for an accounting paper🥴 when an argument pops up.

Why I still remember this day is because it was one of those overcast mornings when the light is not enough to feel like the outdoors is in a good mood yet you are headed to the actual human abbatoir? Why do we need to sit for exams again?🤔(A post for another day)

The argument is on a question that has been discussed ad nauseam but genuinely has been and will always be a paradox.

‘Do I have control over my destiny?’

I prefer debunking such conundrums by getting into the definitions of the terms I’ll throw around first. My go to lexicon is the Cambridge dictionary so before you diagnose my approach as confirmatory bias, I swear by its definitions because they are more practical. TMI, right?🙄

Let’s get into it already,

• Destiny are the things that will happen in the future or by second definition the force that some people think controls what happens in the future, and is outside human control.
• Fate is what happens to a particular person or thing, especially something final or negative, such as death or defeat or by second definition a power that some people believe causes and controls all events, so that you cannot change or control the way things will happen.
• Free will is the ability to decide what to do independently of any outside influence.
• Serendipity is the fact of finding interesting or valuable things by chance.

Are we good to go now? I hope so.

The definitions by themselves already support what most refer to as the ‘paradox of predestination’. This is basically what I will try to demystify from my own understanding.

Did you have the freedom to choose where you were born? Probably not. Even Jesus didn’t😂, or did He theologians? Better yet, did you chose to be born in the first place?

Some things are out of our control and that is what I prefer to call fate. Your fate is already signed, sealed and delivered. As a Christian, this is what I leave to God to feel less burdened.

However, your destiny is a matter of choice, you control it by the kind of actions you take. Ever heard that you are always a decision away from a different life?

This is where free will comes in, you have the freedom from being coerced into making decisions and that is the beauty of individualism. You can freely choose what to do with your life and that is why I believe you should never judge people. Live and let live!

Serendipity on the other hand is what makes positivism the best tool you can face life with. The law of attraction and all that shebang. You attract what you believe you deserve.

It boils down to mindset and being intentional. If you are positive and not just waiting for a serendipitous moment but going for it, you are probably killing this life with one stone.

Ladies, if you meet me at the club that’s fate, but it’s me so serendipity, what you do about it is destiny😉Don’t forget you’ve got free will😂

Not the best outro, but you kind of get the point, yeah? No? Feel free to clarify with me on the comments below😊