Destiny, sometimes referred to as fate, karma, or kismet, places us in the embrace of a predetermined future from a predetermined past. The concept of destiny can justify the events one has experienced. Destiny explains away the choices we made having delivered us into our present. Destiny is seen as the inevitable outcome regardless of our past decisions, as these decisions are predetermined and therefore out of our control.

My disillusionment with the concept of destiny is not based on a disbelief in destiny but the juxtaposition creating the question why should I try to improve myself or humanity if destiny already preordains the outcome? With destiny, I have the excuse to evade any self-responsibility for my decisions as I can chalk it up to destiny.

To explain destiny, one must look deeper into who we are and why we are here without removing the responsibility. What I mean by that is if destiny is the reason the world in the turmoil it is in, then there are a handful of choices to make: we leave it alone and the world will simply follow destiny (positively or negatively). Or, someone chooses to step in and make changes (positive or negative) and we chalk it up to destiny. Or, we all accept responsibility, change the way we think and act, and create a new world or create our destiny.

I believe destiny is simply a flexible guideline, or rough sketch, rather than a stamped in concrete certainty because there are elements of us not covered by destiny and those are our unconsciousness (id) and our ego. If ego fails to control our id, it will manipulate us into the life-styles it chooses for us. Now, you can call that destiny, but I do not consider greed, fear, hate, guilt, discrimination, and self-centeredness by-products of destiny. I do see them as by-products of our id and ego.

Destiny becomes a handy tool to justify our debt-driven support of the id and our inability to afford these wants. This creates the battlefield we all live on. The causalities are every one of us, our relationships, our health, our psyche, our families. Destiny? I’m not so sure.

I prefer to see this existence as an attempt to create a destiny rather than simply us living what destiny has laid out for us. By taking responsibility and controlling our id/ego, we create our destiny rather than living destiny.

Destiny explains why the images we create of our life’s path are shown as that: a path that already exists extending from some past to some future.

I see our life’s path as a footstep on a sandy beach. As we walk, our past footstep is washed away, and our future footstep becomes the present as soon as we shift our weight. No past, no future. Just the present. Destiny? Well, is destiny created by where we place our next footstep, or is destiny directing where we place our foot? If this is destiny, then what of the pre-determined past and future, if neither exist?

My contention, we are all responsible for what goes on in our life. We have no penance to pay, no sins to answer for, no judgements to make. Our choices brought us here to this place in this time. Destiny? Fate? Karma? Kismet? Perhaps! If all our decisions are preordained as destiny proclaims then regardless of my contentions, placing these thoughts on paper just might be destiny. What say you?

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of CHOICES Magazine