“Destiny”
How often do we sing this word in songs, read in prose and poetry, and talk about with our friends? In wedding proposals and wedding vows you would hear: “We are soul mates.” “We are meant to be together” and at the wedding reception the song “Baby You’re My Destiny” by Jim Brickman would be playing. In epic novels, at the birth of the hero someone would say: “This boy is destined for greatness.” And let us not forget how we all have thought about: “What is my destiny?”
Every day we live our lives – playing, studying, working, eating, sleeping or just doing whatever – seemingly aimless. But this one word—this one very powerful word offers an explanation to what we do, to who we are and to what we are meant to be. D-E-S-T-I-N-Y… Destiny. But is it real?
It is quite a romantic idea, isn’t it? It always seems to give a sense of purpose especially to those who feel little or who have suffered so much that the belief of bigger important things to come gives meaning to all that they have went through. Unfortunately I do not share the same sentiments. Despite the excruciating pangs of my own life, I believe that a breathing human being is only destined for two things: to be born and to eventually die. What we do in between is life—a series of choices.
Relationships between two different people work because they choose to make it work. There are
those people who move from rags to riches because they choose to earn and save money. Students fail their exams because they choose not to study for it or the teacher chooses to make it extremely difficult for a student to answer. A man dies in a motor accident because someone chose to drive drunk. A woman gets AIDS because she chose a very sexually promiscuous boyfriend who chose not to get himself checked and consider his partner’s safety. You do not get hired for a job because the employer chooses not to choose you. Much of what happens in one’s life can be explained by choices made.
But there are lots of things that an individual cannot perceive or control but were made through a series of choices by himself and other people and all the rest that cannot be explained by choice is just a matter of getting the better hand in life and working with it, such as in the case of the disabled. The disabled are ordinary people given extraordinary challenges, who did not choose or were chosen to be disabled. However, that does not change the fact that they are. They are still given a choice though- either to work with that disability or let that disability pull them down and the rest of their lives depend on the choice that they make. Choices: that is what it is all about.
Destiny, I also believe, has become a popular excuse by those who cannot accept their mistakes and their shortcomings. It is so easy to say that a singer did not win a contest because he was not meant to but the truth is that that singer was not good enough. It is so easy to blame destiny for a loved one’s untimely death instead of pointing out that he died because he smoked and drank a lot. We use this word – destiny to euphemize the otherwise mean but truthful occurrences or characteristics about ourselves or other people.
But the bottom line is: what we do, who we are and who we are meant to be are not determined by destiny. It is determined by knowing oneself – knowing our abilities and limitations and choosing our life’s path based on that knowledge and based on our will to be the best that we can be. So if destiny truly exists, it exists in the choices that we make.
