Your Destiny is You: Embracing Your Unique Journey

by elmads

Introduction

Is your life today a by product of your destiny or because of your choices?

Are your choices destined to happen, or were they due to your free will?

Thoughts that occupy my mind and maybe yours as well. If destiny holds our lives, then why do we even bother to do anything? Why not just sit, sleep, and wait for what we are destined to become?

Yet, what’s even our destiny?

Are we destined to only suffer in life? Or are we destined for greatness? Perhaps both, or maybe there’s no such thing as destiny. We’re just a mass of flesh, born to procreate and eventually die.

The Paradox Between Destiny and Freewill

If our future is determined by destiny, then somehow there is no place for free will. How could there be free will without the freedom to make decisions and, in turn, influence our future outcomes?

It puts tension on these two concepts. Some people are convinced that our free will is limited by our destiny, while others argue that our destiny is shaped by our free will.

Free Will is Limited by Our Destiny

A 21-year-old Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with a rare motor neuron disease called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

When he was a child, he spent his time staring up at the stars. This fascination and curiosity will soon turn out to be the focus of his life’s work. Yet before he even reached his full potential, his ALS disease happened. The nerves that controlled his muscles were shutting down.

Before his diagnosis, Stephen Hawking did not always focus on studying. "Before my condition was diagnosed, I had been very bored with life," he said. "There had not seemed to be anything worth doing."

In a sense, his disease pushed him to continue his life and pursue his Ph.D., which later helped him to make his ground-breaking research, books, and studies.

He was destined to be one of the greatest physicists of the 21st century. It can even be considered that his ALS was a contributor to his attainment of his destiny.

Free will was in the equation; he certainly had free will, because Stephen Hawking could have given up his dreams when his body continued to deteriorate, but he didn’t. Most people would find it hard to continue with such a disease, yet Hawking defied his own limitations by pursuing life and following his vocation.

I can’t help but wonder: What if Stephen Hawking did not have his ALS? Would he still become the person everyone knows about? Maybe he would, but not to the extent of his achievements if he has ALS, or perhaps he wouldn’t pursue his Ph.D., which could have changed the entire course of his life.

So, going back to my question, Does destiny limit the options of our free will? Perhaps, but we should consider the opposing view as well.

Destiny is shaped by our free will.

Destiny is Shaped by Our Free Will

At 13 years old, Zora Neale Hurston’s mother died, while her father abandoned her to the world. To make matters worse, she was a female African American in the first?decade of the 20th century.

A time and place where white individuals have more privilege in education and position. Not to mention, men were dominant and had more opportunities than women during this time.

To survive at such a young age, she worked tirelessly as a maid in different households. Zora Hurston had one of the unfortunate cards of her life. It would be understandable if she just accepted her given hand and succumbed to destiny. How her world crumbled and how sorry it had become.

Yet it didn’t happen.

There is one thing that has always been within her. She had a dream to become a writer, and it didn’t matter how impossible it was; she would strive to become one.

Her circumstances were one of the direst situations a 13-year-old individual could have experienced at such a young age, with racial and gender discrimination and inequality. Yet she didn’t let those unfortunate circumstances hold her down. It was more important to achieve her dream than to be sorry for herself and blame destiny for the life it initially gave her.

She continued to work hard as a housecleaner, and she pursued working on wealthy white family houses. Her reason was ingenuity; it was so that she could read the books of wealthy individuals. It was only the wealthy people of that time who had shelves of books. And where there are books, there is knowledge.

Young Zora also had an eye for reading and learning; she devoured all the information, knowledge, and style of writing in all the books she could read in the houses of wealthy families where she worked. She did her reading secretly, even for a few minutes.

As time passed, she was able to land a maid job for a travelling troupe. There she was able to learn about the white world; the troupes were also educated, so she learned a lot of things from them. She was able to read a lot of books as well due to the troupe, and she was able to establish a good relationship with them due to her love of literature.

At 25 years old, she was able to attend a free public high school and, after a few years, a university. While in university, she did her best to establish good connections with her professors and co-students. In there, she got an offer to go to Barnard College to finish her college education. She would be the first and only black student at the college.

Zora Neale Hurston never stopped; she continued to move forward, no matter what.

She became a writer after a few years, and not just any writer but the first black female writer to make a living from her work. A well-known black writer of her time, her most famous novel is “Jonah’s Gourd Vine,” which is also her life’s work.

Zora Hurston’s life story seems to contradict the notion that destiny limits our free will because her initial life circumstances were certainly not her choice but a destiny that was not within her control. Even before the death of her mom, she already had the curiosity and inclination to learn. What are the chances that she would not realise her dreams if her mom did not pass away?

That said, that kind of destiny given to anyone would have crushed most people. What more to a child who doesn’t know much of the world yet, with discrimination part of it just because of the gender and race she was born into?

Yet, Zora defied all odds. Her free will to follow her dreams rather than succumb to her nightmarish circumstances shaped her own destiny. Others would theorise that it was still all part of her destiny. Or is it?

Destiny, Freewill and Your Calling

The paradox of destiny and free will is a matter of one’s beliefs and understanding of life. Both perspectives have valid points—free will is limited by our destiny, and our destiny is shaped by our free will—and yet we cannot disregard that one is correct and the other is false. Both of them are happening within the same sphere of time, at the right moment, at the exact time.

What intrigues me, though, is our drive. The unique innate abilities, inclinations, and curiosities we have had since we were young. For Stephen Hawking, it was the stars, and for Zora Hurston, it was to write.

A young Charles Darwin wasn’t good at school; what he was interested in was outdoor activities. He loved hunting, looking for rare breeds of beetles, and collecting flowers and mineral specimens. He grew up doing the same hobbies, and his father, who was a well-known doctor in their place, wasn’t happy. Charles’ hobbies didn’t amount to anything. Due to this, his father scolded him and said hurtful words that Charles will never forget: “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all of your family”.

After a few years, this disgraceful young adult became one of the most important persons in the world who would theorise evolution by natural selection, which changed how we look upon a species’ evolution.

This wasn’t because Darwin was a very intelligent person or because he was the top student in his class. It was because he followed through on his natural gifts, honed his knowledge that was in line with his inclinations, and used these things as his base to build something from the ground up. Then he shared all of it with others.

We tend to think of destiny as exclusively the lives we are born into, either privileged or not, and the events that happened, are happening, or will happen to us—these are all true in some sense.

What we don’t understand, though, is that our natural abilities, or what I call the blessings we receive from above, are also our own destiny. Each one of us has these unique skills, and free will is also a big part of them. The free will to find, hone, and expand our own unique skills as we walk the path of time It is what shapes our destiny moving forward.

Charles Darwin could have just followed what his father wanted for him, which was to become a doctor, and not his unique self. He would still have a good life if he did, but he chose to become the Charles Darwin that the world knows today, the naturalist and geologist.

Regardless of destiny or not, we still have the choice to realise something better for ourselves, and that’s usually tied to who we really are.

Destiny in the Grand Scheme of Things

To be Continued

Knowledge is my Sword and Patience is my Shield,

elmads

This blog serves informational purposes only. Accuracy of information is not guaranteed. Stories are based on and inspired by Robert Greene's book "Mastery".