Do you believe in fate?

There are many things I believe in: people, myself, karma, love, the Doctor, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the square root of pi – but if there’s one thing I don’t believe in, it’s fate. I believe that sometimes two people are “good for each other” or “should belong together” but I never believe that they are the only people ever meant for each other ever. I don’t believe that, for instance – one person should and always, despite every single thing they attempt to defy it – be destined to be a journalist. Or a bricklayer. Or a pornstar.

If we were destined to be something, how the hell would we know, for starters? Am I supposed to go out and randomly become a geologist and say, “this is the path that was chosen for me. No matter how hard I try to work in a bank, or even if I travel so far from nature and rocks and just go to the Sahara, something is going to act as a magnet and draw me back to some damn rocks”. A geologist was just what I wanted to be so much when I was a kid. If I break my leg in an accident, is that something that was always going to happen to me? How would I know? If I was in a car when it happened, was I somehow destined to get into that exact car at that exact time and sit in that exact spot and be travelling to that exact place?

Let me start with this. For example, I broke my leg. I would not have broken my leg had that car not hit me. That car would not have hit me had I not decided to speed through the yellow traffic light. I would not have sped through that light had I not been running late for work. I would not have been running late if I had not eaten breakfast late. I would not have been eating breakfast late if I didn’t wake up after my alarm. I wouldn’t have been late at all. And no, I don’t believe I was destined to wake up late on that very day at that very time so that a chain of events would result in me breaking my leg. If I was destined to break my leg at that time, anything, anything could have stopped me from doing so. A split second change of decision to run through a yellow light. A decision to skip breakfast. A decision to not go to work at all. And that is what I call chance.

Yesterday, I bumped into my ex-boyfriend, Kiah. Now, we weren’t destined to be together. I don’t believe that. If, six years ago, I kept going around thinking I was destined to be with him, I would be so damn miserable.

Whenever I see someone I know and I’m in public, just out on the street or at the shops or on the train, one of two things happens.

  • I approach them and say hello.
  • I halt half-step, nearly trip over, and realise there is nothing I can do other than walk past this someone and begin looking at something in a direction away from that person (and no, that’s not fate) and hope like hell as I grit my teeth and bite my lip that they don’t notice me because I am avoiding them completely.

I realise that the latter happens when it is a person I don’t know well, a person I dislike, or a person I seriously just “don’t want to fucking talk to right now”. Nothing is worse than encountering someone you are just going to be awkward around.

In this case, I did the former. I had to say hello. I mean, we’re still friends. I’ll be honest, I missed talking to him – even though seeing him busking in the subway and playing harmonica as he juggled hacky sacks and recalling the time in 2006 that I had been sorely dumped and chose to hang on by a thread in the hopes that our on-off relationship would no longer be off made me realise that I really felt pretty damn awesome and happy to be with James, someone so much more worthy of my affection, for ever so long now – so I stopped and we had a chat and caught up with whatever was going on in our precious little lives.

And it is encounters like these that make my day, because it isn’t one of those really horrid encounters in which you bump into a friend who betrayed you and two years later decides to apologise, but rather, one that you brought upon yourself, one that turned out not-so-bad.

I realised that had I not decided to linger with Johnny and Fern in the shop at 8:15 at night, had I not decided to walk with them from class, had I not decided to put my photo paper in my locker, had I not decided to stay back in class to review my work, had I not become frustrated over a photo I was printing… then maybe I wouldn’t have walked with Johnny to the station and realised that the busker he wanted to give the only bit of cash he had on him (two dollars) to – was actually my ex-boyfriend.

And I don’t think fate made me re-do a photo print four times. I don’t think fate made me end up walking with Johnny. I don’t think fate changed Johnny’s mind about spending his last $2 on betting. I don’t think fate made me bump into my ex-boyfriend, or even bring me to nearly four years with James.

No, I think that’s chance.

Comments on this post

Wugz!

Yeah, fate is stupid. Whoever believes in it just wants an excuse for doing nothing about their lives. They use it as a way to shirk responsibility and effort, saying everything they do is inconsequential thanks to destiny. That’s lame.

Chance, and circumstance. Chance is an outcome of every situation; the way you hold the die, the time Kiah is free to busk. Circumstance; now that’s something you can believe in. :)

(Y)

Fate is a funny idea. Was it fate the hero took arms and decided to fight evil? Was it fate Person A liked English class in school and went on to become a bestselling author? Was it fate a man (or woman) said “screw you destiny” and fought it as hard as they could?

I don’t believe fate. It’s not like, I believe fate is stupid, an illogical idea that cannot be true. It’s more like, I have no reason to believe in it. It may be true, it may not be true, but as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t exist and thus, I don’t believe in it. Not that it doesn’t stop me from thinking about it from time to time.

In terms of fiction, especially. Could the hero have refused the call to adventure? Maybe, and yet (in some cases) he chose to follow it, to travel to areas unknown and battle evil and save everyone. But does that mean it was fate? I mean, assuming his hometown wasn’t destroyed… okay, time for a better example.

Say someone decides to become a writer and becomes a best-selling novelist. Was it fate? Was that someone’s destiny always to become a writer? Could have he become a doctor, or a lawyer instead, if he had chosen? Who knows. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter. As long as it was that person’s choice to and he doesn’t have any regrets, whether it was fate or not that led him become an author, it makes no difference. It’s not important. And if people feel better by believing in fate, whatever works for them~

Sometimes good things happen. Sometimes bad things happen. Whether it’s fate or just chance, at the end of the day, it won’t make much of a difference. At least, that’s what I believe in.

I can’t say if I believe in fate or not, because I’ve never said that I’m fated to be this or that. Well, perhaps my friends love to make me blush by saying “Oh you’re destined to be his husband” and cheesy stuffs like that.

It’s not fate that makes us in the future – it’s the present and ourselves. It’s not fate that one may become a doctor, because what makes him a doctor is what he did in the past in his life and himself, his will.

Well, I also don’t think that it’s fate that you bump to your ex-boyfriend, perhaps just a coincidence. Coincidence always exist and can appear suddenly and unexpectedly, perhaps that’s what I can say.

I believe in fate. I don’t believe in destinies except in fiction, or something such as my fate is to something something. But I do believe it’s fate that morons annoy the hell out of me every day. It’s not like anything can be changed. They were just born to walk slow or talk too much, so that’s been decided already.

Agreed with Liv. Additionally I think fate is more like a device which makes your last post on “stories” more compelling… or more damning (like a defeatist loser). Well fate is an umbrella term for all these serendipities which is probably why it is used.
Personal anecdote time, my beloved grandfather died of cancer; nice guy (not biased there… sarcasm… maybe). I attribute it to bad luck dealt out by “fate”; in actual fact, he was a heavy smoker some 20-40 years ago.
So… curse your misfortune with fates.
Glorify your personal achievements (and add the destiny factor if you want some divine element in it).
Hmmmm… now that I think about, fate is an example of probatio diabolica and the term is just wide enough that it “predicts the future” even though you analyze it as “fate” or whatever retrospectively.
Needs more boom…
💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥 💥

The concept of fate really interested me but I’m not sure I’ve ever really believed in it. I just question it. And then in the end, it all boils down to the same conclusion that you came up with – it is all chance. But if fate was real, could it affect our chances? Would it somehow twist our actions to do as it wishes?

Thinking like that makes my head hurt…

I think it’s good that you and Kiah are on friendly terms. Relationships are precious things and wasting time hating someone really… well, I’ve learned that it comes to nothing of use. Plus is makes me happy to hear people have got over past incidents.

I found it weird to see you use his name, though. I’m so used to seeing “Bearman” in your posts… 💥
–

Well said: fuck PE. Dayum, I don’t mind exercise – in fact, I quite like it – but I can find PE simply awful at times. Too much effort. /ehh

Take care, Georgie! xx

I don’t believe in fate either. I always thought that was a silly idea. I definitely do believe in chance, karma, and the square root of pi, though :)
And I can’t stand those awkward encounters of people I know from school at a store or supermarket or whatever. It’s even worse if it’s a person I know of but am not really friends with. It’s like, if you say hi, then maybe you seem weird, but if you don’t, you might seem rude.

I’m not really sure what to believe to be honest; it’s not like I don’t believe in fate, I just have no reason to. I do, however, believe everything happens for a reason – whether it be something good or bad, it must have happened for a reason. (Wait, is that the same thing? IDEK)

To be honest, it makes my head hurt to even think about it. I think we all should just “go with the flow” rather than believing in things like fate, but hey, that’s just my opinion.

I tend to over-analysing things like, like your paragraph on the broken leg thing (lol thing) but yeah, I always see things like that. If I miss my bus, I always wonder if I hadn’t of gone to the toilet before I left, or if I had walked a little faster, you know?

I think it’s good that you’re on good terms with your ex-boyfriend; I’m still friends with most of my ex-boyfriends (lol makes me sound like I’ve had loads!) which makes me happy, but I’ve never thought when I was with any of them “hey, it’s our fate to be together”. Even though I believed me and Rob were going to stay together forever, I realise now it was naive of me to think that way.

Omg, I ramble so much. Does this even make sense?

Yes I do…that is my answer to the title of the post XD. I know I am opposing your belief but I have my own reasons. While I agree with you that we shouldn’t rely on destiny or fate alone but there are certain instances where no matter what you do, you can’t change the way events unfold.

Like you said there is no way of knowing what you are fated for. Thus the best we can do is work hard towards what we want…but if we fail or don’t get it then instead of getting depressed over it we should realize that maybe it was not the best thing for us. A lot of times we don’t necessarily know what is best for us. At times we know what we want but don’t know what we need. (I love princess and the frog movie :D). I think chance and fate are intertwined. Chances provide alternate destinies. Like in a game where your outcome is decided by your decisions, however you might not get to make decisions at all points.

You weren’t destined to be with him which is exactly why you eventually broke up eventhough you had made the decision to go out with him. I guess you could look at things differently but in the end you never know what’s going to happen. Sure we can make our own decisions, choices or whatever you call it but there will always be uncontrolled external factors. Like how you run into these people…no matter what decision you make there is no way of knowing for sure if you will run into them or not…aka fate or what I like to refer to as external factors. You couldn’t have made the decision to talk to him unless you came upon this chance encounter. I don’t mean to put your opinion down or anything…I am just saying what I have personally experienced and realized.

I think in the end it all about the word that you want to use to describe the “external factor”. Some call it fate, some destiny…and you call it chance. In the end it all refers more or less to the same thing. Just depends on how your define it ^_^.

In a high school history class, we talked about two theories that historians look at. The first is the Great Man theory, that says that people who take initiative and act strongly define history and what happens. The second is the deterministic theory, that says that if a particular historical figure hadn’t existed, that there would have been someone else to take his place. If we believe in “fate” as you put it, then we believe in the deterministic theory.

Personally, I like the Great Man theory better, because I like to think that I am in control of what happens. Or we could all think that one superior being was controlling our decisions and making us believe that we were controlling ourselves. But at any rate, most of the Calvinists were just fine as people who took an initiative and they definitely believed in determinism. I believe that they thought that they were the chosen people and should follow their own fates and do what God assigned them to do. So either way, you can come out okay.

I believe in fate… somewhat. I have a similar story but substitute the boyfriend with an ex-friend and a lot of hatred… just, she’s in the media industry and I had to interview her. It’s ironic seeing as she always put me down and would question my work, but now she was a subject I had to focus on. Super awkward.
For her and I, it is kind of like fate that I had to interview and be in contact with her again. It brought up a lot of issues but some things have finally been sorted seeing as we ended our friendship with her bad-mouthing me everywhere. It was an encounter we needed.

I agree with you, your situation was most probably chance. Fate is an entirely bigger thing altogether. You just happened to bump into him; it is not as if anything major came from it – except for past feelings which to me is pretty important. Heck, it was probably even coincidence.

Hope you are well. :)

This has got to be THE BEST damn blog that I’ve ever read on your site. :D /bounce And I’m not just saying that cause I like to visit and read your blogs, I really do think it’s the best one. :D

I don’t believe in fate either, things happen cause a person was just in the right or wrong place at the right or wrong time(s).

If I ever ran into an ex, I think I would have just kept walking or acting like I had to be somewhere in a hurry. I mean an ex is an ex, why would I want to talk to them? That person is an ex for a reason, right?

Sounds amazing! You should post your work! I’m sure it’s amazing! After all, you seem like a very artsy person :)
I completely agree. I love how different people depict an abstract thing like music and make it into something physical and unique, if that makes any sense :D Like, uh . . . have you ever seen the Blue Man Group?

Mean to be is sweet in Asian drama but it’s just cheesy love not fate. That kind of stuff doesn’t exist in real life! There’s this thing about a legend on how men were born with 2 heads 4 arms 4 legs you get it, and god split it so you spend your life searching for your other half. I don’t believe that haha.

I want to be a 3D animator and if I were to say I’m destined that wouldn’t be true because I’m obviously studying boring theory stuff. So you never know what path you’re meant for that’s why you make decisions otherwise wouldn’t it be automatic like robots? Haha I”m being silly.

Considering I’ve been hit by a car before and I don’t even think that’s fate, I’ll agree with your story. It was chance that I wasn’t looking where I was going.

Bahahahahha I wouldn’t even say hi to my ex-boyfriend. I’d say something more along the lines of go die. XD

Life is all chance.

——

Oh god all the best luck to BRANDON and his future children that he doesn’t become a copy of my mom. I’m thinking about changing my major because I know several people who are way older than me and still studying, so it’s not the end of the world if I don’t graduate at 20 like you, haha. Not that it would’ve been possible in the first place, we all graduate at 22 if we go to school on time. Unless we study architecture/engineering etc then its 23.

I guess a year-ish is a while. I don’t believe in 3-month boyfriends, haha. But it’s okay you two were way young anyway.

Thanks for the friendly invite haha but I’m still trying to decide what home to move to.

Yea, I do think it’s only by chance that we get to bump with one another… I actually do not really believe in fate… nonetheless, I believe that past lives are true.. and that some time iny my life, I get to encounter people whom I’ve met before.. making me either comfortable talking to them (when we were in good terms bin the previous life) or just simply hate them even without any reason ( just because we didn’t have the opportunity to patch things up during my previous life).

i see it as everything happens for a reason, thats my opinion. for example there was a reason behind why i had my boat accident when i was for that left me quadrapalegic and in a wheelchair.
if i bumped into my ex boyfriend i would just say hi and then leave, we stopped talking on bad terms.

I can’t say I hate it; but I can say I dislike the concept of fate. people often use fate in reasons that I find ricidulously stupid at times. I believe that we make our own fate, we choose our own destiny. like you said, if that car didn’t hit me, I wouldn’t have my leg broken. It’s just a matter of choice, for me. Destiny, fate or whatever those are just sort of a bullshit.
I personally think people who believe in fate are quite.. irrational, so to speak. I doubt them knowing what are their fate, what is the purpose or destiny of their existences and such. If fate has been set for us the moment we’re born, then why is there failure in this world? certainly, I don’t believe in fate itself.
I kinda agree on you saying everything is according to chance. It’s just how we lead our lives, specifically. everything can change if we have the chance. no fate.

Fate, destiny, “meant to be,” “meant to happen for a reason, ” chance – they all confuse me and I choose not to associate myself with any of them, except maybe karma, since that falls into my family’s Buddhist religion. But even with karma, I’m not that “in to” either. Things happen and that’s just it. Nothing else. It just happened. That’s all. There’s really nothing more or less to it, really. :P

And about karma, it doesn’t even really fit with my little list. It’s more about how you do good things, you’ll have good karma, how you do bad things, you’ll have bad karma. It’s more along the lines of personal decision making and your actions, which obviously is something only YOU can control. It’s not about “predicting the future” or believing what you did was “meant to happen.” The way I view it, it’s like, you did this awful thing, now you have to “make it better” by producing good results or else bad karma will keep coming your way.

First of all, I think your theme is epic! I am currently inlove with it. Any who, I don’t believe in fate either. I mean, everything we do and everything we become depends on us. It depends on what we want, what we do to have it. It’s a matter of living our own life and finding our own path. Fate is a funny idea for those people who are lazy, or even misguided.

Anyway, this is one of those blogs that make sense. Cheers to you!

I gosh, I encounter my ex boyfriend the other day at the gym. He’s also a member of that gym but he hasn’t been for a long time. He was showing his new girlfriend around the gym, I guess she was looking to join. I noticed them in the corner of my eye but I didn’t want to talk to them as it’s pretty awkward. Well I dumped him a year ago and I don’t really want to talk to him as it ended badly.

I don’t believe it’s fate that I met him again…with his new girlfriend. He just happens to live near by and be a member of the gym. It’s not really fate.

Sometimes I believe in it, sometimes I don’t, I don’t believe that we are destined to do something but I believe that fate helps us and gives us opportunities and it’s up to us to take it.

I believe in fate. Like, 5 years ago I imagined I would end up being a science teacher and I believed I would. But along the way things happened and now I am a qualified History teacher. So I think I am fated to be a History teacher. Or say I changed my mind the last minute before I jumped off the bus. While I can say it WAS my decision and my choice to do it, who’s to tell I wasn’t fated to do it?

But it doesn’t mean that I rely everything on fate and just sit back and do nothing. To many, the future may be something that is not yet defined, but for those who believe in fate, the future is already set for us and whatever choices we make now are only part of the journey to reach the fate(s).

I’m not good explaining this and I’m not even sure if you actually understand what I’m talking about. Hahaha!

Fail… I always thought Kiah and Bearman were the same person. 😰 Well now everything makes a lot more sense for me, I must say.
Either way, Bearman most certainly sounds like a turd. And a rather large pile of faecaes, at that.

Kiah is a nice name /eee

I would find it weird to know that my whole life was set out for me and that I was definitely going to die at this point and cry at this point and kick someone in the face at this point and eat noodles at x time and eat too many biscuits at 5:41pm on a Tuesday evening. If we all knew our futures surely we’d take measures to avoid them and normally those measures lead to their occurance. It’s all rather confusing.

I like to think that things happen for a reason, though. And I guess I partly believe in karma – to a degree. It makes sense, see: you’re a shithole and you get shit flung your way. (This comment keeps talking about faecaes… um).

Take care! xx

/poo
Couldn’t resist, baha.

I think I spelt “faecaes” wrong. Is it “faeces”?

/bash

Mm so…

/oh

I believe in fate :P But not everything is based on fate of course. I just believe in fate because it seems to make sense for me right now. But maybe you’re the type of person that is more in control of her life (which is a GREAT) and I’m still working on that so right now fate seems to explain things better for me.

I go back and forth in my beliefs in fate, and even at the best of times when I do believe in fate, it’s not in an all around sense like it was destiny that my alarm clock didn’t go off, I slept in late, running late for work and got hit by a car kind of thing. But generally I don’t believe in fate at all. Actually, I said “even at the best of times when I do believe in fate” but usually when I believe in fate it is at the worst of times, times in my life when I don’t want to take responsibility and say it was the Universe’s bidding. It’s a way of washing my hands of things.

Helloooo!

I kind of believe in fate. I don’t like to and I hate the fact that it means I have even LESS control of my own life than I want…but I can’t help it. Like I don’t think you’re destined to ONLY have one sole occupation you’re just meant to, and I don’t think that two people are just MEANT to be together no matter what (because that kind of cheesy crap only happens in movies and books and crap), but I can’t believe that we’re just floating around here existing…there’s gotta be SOMETHING guiding us…I can’t really put it into words but I just can’t help but feel that =S.

LOL so random bumping into Kiah BUSKING of all things XD. But must have been pretty amusing. I hate when the second situation happens though. I feel so self-conscious attempting to avoid eye-contact and a little bit stupid, but I can’t STAND awkward and forced conversation D:. I just CAN’T! Hahahaha xD What if you say hi, and they don’t recognise you? D: EEEEP!

That other guy you referred to was a total ASS. TOTAL. ASSSSS!

But encounters like the one you had with Kiah totally make my day too :). Like I bumped into Katherine a few weeks back (I think I told you) and I was seriously high for the rest of the afternoon.

Anyway I’m going back to being UN-high now because of CURSED tutorial questions T_T. WAAAAAH!

I believe in fate in my own way, I think sometimes we are meant to do one thing or another. Although some things just happen by chance, but not fate. I also do believe in chance, karma, and the square root of pi, haha.

I think it’s good that you’re on good terms with your ex-boyfriend.
And I can’t stand those awkward encounters of people I know from school or University at a store or supermarket or whatever. It’s even worse if it’s a person I know of but am not really friends with. It’s like, if you say hi, then maybe you seem weird, but if you don’t, you might seem rude, do you understand?

I missed your blogs, they’re always interesting :)

I believe that if I don’t believe in fate it was fate for me not to believe in it. It might sound stupid, but basically what it means is fate doesn’t require you to believe in it. It simply is. So with that in mind, live life like you want to. Live life with the aim of creating your own fate. Live life, because fate doesn’t require you to follow it. Whatever you do will be fate.