Destiny - Truth or Fiction?


“He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned.”
14th-century French Proverb

          I wonder how many of you are familiar with this proverb? The more relevant question, however, is how many of you believe that this is actually the case? Our topic for afterthought is “destiny”, and for one, I certainly do not believe this to be the case. So, someone wants to convince me that if I am destined to die in a car accident, there is no way that I will die in any other way but that! What is the opinion of others on this matter?
Martin Delany is of the opinion that all people should be the originators of their own designs, the projectors of their own schemes, and the creators of the events that lead to their own destinies. Now that I can go along with, but still, that is simply my view. I will not use destiny as a comfort zone, because there are many who think that destiny is a tyrant’s authority for acting criminally and a fool’s excuse for all his/her failures. “It happened because it was destiny because it was written in the stars long before I was born…” Yeah, right, give destiny the blame.
G.K. Chesterton said that he did not believe in a fate that falls on men, irrespective of how they act, rather in a fate that falls on them unless they act. The Czech philosopher, Jan Patocka, added to this in observing that the true test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him; or as Dag Hammarskjöld said that even if we are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny, we are permitted with regard to what we put into it ourselves.

How you frame your destiny will be determined by none other than yourself, so do not ascribe your failures to destiny, destiny is in your hands, you simply have to mould it!

Some say it’s their destiny,
then they sit back and lull: “what must be, must be…”
But I don’t believe in fate
because I write my life’s story on my own piece of slate...


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