I absolutely don’t believe in fate, but I don’t think we can control everything either.  I think people make fate up because they can’t imagine how things might have been if they were different (and every tiny second has a different outcome), and also because randomness is scary.  However, I do think it’s random.

 The questions are kind of skewed though.  Ultimately life and death are out of our hands.  We don’t get to choose living, and though we can try suicide, we can’t really choose when and how we die.   There are plenty of things we can do to be on the favorable side of probability, but nothing is absolutely certain.  So I can’t really say that we completely control our destinies either.

To be honest, I had to vote with the never give it a thought option.  It seems really unimportant to me. As far as I’m concerned, good fortune means you do the best you can and get a good result.  It’s something to be happy about!

I believe that we have control over our lives.

I believe that there is a random quality to life.  

Together, our control and this random quality together determine our lives. Controlling everything is not possible but we have more control than often wed like to accept.

Faith is the cornerstone of my life.

Fate: maybe that is the wrong word.  I believe in freedom of choice, given to me by God as my birthright.  But as my Father in Heaven, I believe He guides me in those choices.

Are they always right?  No.  But as any benevolent parent would do, sometimes I believe that God lets us slip up a few times to teach us how to move forward.

And like any child, sometimes I question His judgement.  But it always works out in the end.

Destiny?  Maybe.  Fate?  I think the word "fate" has a negative connotation, so I don’t like to use it.  My choice?  Only with God’s permission.

And I always end up learning something during the experience.

I happen to think and KNOW for a fact we make our own luck.

Get a load of me now!   

Yeah, a year ago I was beat down, spit on, cheated on, ripped off and so sos broken … 

Today, I hold my high and keep my addictions at bay …. including this one.  

God gives us choices to make but ultimately I believe that life and death are out of our hands.  There is a time to be born and a time to die and I don’t believe we have any say in when or how that happens IF you are a child of God. The choices that we make decides the quality of life that we have for the time that God has given us.

well, i do believe in fate. but i believe it can be changed or at least put off. all my life i knew i was going to die at 40. so i planned my life accordingly and told my kids this would happen and searched out friends and family to take care of them because i just had a feeling they wouldn’t be ready to do it on their own yet.

well, when i turned 38 i was very, very sick had been for a while. i hadn’t been to a gynocologist in 3yrs. but i had a small growth in a peculiar area and finally had medical insurance to take care of it. i had been having periods every 2wks lasting 10days a shot and i was hemoragging (sp?). the dr took one look inside me and "i could fix that for you, but if you don’t want me too!" i had been needing, wanting, literally dying for a hysterectomy and had been promised one when i turned 25. 

the dr of course changed his mind then and several drs later i decided forget it. it’s never going to happen i will just die because you cannot change fate. i told the dr i wanted the operation, but just in case didnt get my hopes up and never showed the true joy in case he might change his mind. up until the very morning of the operation i fretted about it. 

finally it happened and i woke up from the operation feeling totally different suddenly i had no idea when i would die and i feel like it totally changed fate. since then i have had at least one more brush with death, but again i changed it and am doing better for myself. i just had to take the bull by the horns and not let it defeat me. call it destiny or ESP or whatever. but i have often chose a totally different path that has changed something i felt was in store for me. i cannot explain it. so yes i believe in fate, but i believe there are many forks in the road!

I have been in places where  all things planned flew out the window.

both good and bad for lack of better words.

life is not fair.  but its life. and I love it. 

Fate means different things to different people.

Somethings feel like fate but they aren’t.

Somethings are out of our control. Somethings we can change but don’t wish to.  Some things we allow others to control for us.

In the end what we get out of life is what we put into it.

If something isn’t right to you.  Find a new goal, path to walk.

We came into this world alone, and will go out alone.

If you’re lonely join a club, volunteer, even walk in a crowded room and give thanks that you no longer pick up dirty underwear, you can eat that chocolate bar if you want or don’t want, and you don’t have someone fighting over something giving you a migrane. :grins:

If you’re wishing to do something different DO!  Sometimes it only takes a journey to a new town that you’ve never been to and play tourist!  Give yourself a mini vacation!  Even if it is to go to a place you’ve thought about visiting but never had the reason to. 

Make YOU the reason!

You don’t need any excuses for why you do something.  But make yourself even a character in a book and lose yourself in the moment and dress up, go out somewhere new, have a nice lunch, stroll down a pier, dress in jeans and wear your mp3 and gaze out over the water or sit down in a park with a good book.  Lose yourself in a fantasy whim.

Go to a store and try on clothing and just take notes to how it felt, how it fitted, go to a fabric store and buy swatches of your favorite material to make note of what you want to look for next time you go shopping!

Go into your closet, weed it out, set on the bed what you no longer wear, don’t worry about who gave you what, and then take it to a resale shop and make NEW money that you can enjoy later on for your next fantasy vacation trip, no matter how small or long you take it.

You can’t do much about other people but you CAN do something about YOU!  Live life to its fullest and then write about it to yourself so you can look back on how you felt when you did it, and what you gained from doing it.

Most of all, have FUN!

PS. want some real fun? Get a bunch of your girl friends and a MUST is to consider watching Momma Mia and karoke those ABBA Songs!

 OR if you want, get you and your friends together and create a Community Play of it and get into some wacky costume and let your hair down!

That movie was a HOOT! :smiles: