Last night, I was sipping some drinks with a couple of
friends at Castille Square. We were using the outdoor tables and chairs of The
Beer Cave. I was having Amaretto. I love Amaretto. One of my two friends was
having Black Label, and the other one was having Gin & Tonic. It was around
2 a.m. when the Gin & Tonic girl said something about fate and destiny to
which I immediately replied that I don’t believe in such things. That single comment
sparked a very long and exhausting debate.
One of the greatest and everlasting debates of humanity has
been about the role of destiny in the lives of human beings. There was a time
when it was almost an accepted fact of life, that each and every event was governed
by destiny. Astrology was considered a science. Then with the advent of modern
times, the importance of the role of destiny as a concept started losing
weight. Today, belief in destiny is considered a superstition by the majority
of people. And rightly so, since there seems to be no evidence for the
irrevocability of destiny and fate.
Human beings possess free will. All our successes, failures and actions are
governed by the decisions we take. We have the option to take decisions using
our free will. Fate is a superstition, and it can be regarded as a
psychological defence system to cope with the failures in life.
Whenever you fail in some endeavour, or whenever something
happens which is not in accordance with your wish, you use it as a convenient
scapegoat. You say, it was your bad luck which caused you to fail. Otherwise,
how could you fail? You are never ready to accept that it was only you who was
responsible for the failure. It may have been due to some bad planning, lack of
efforts in the right direction, or outright failure to correctly judge the
realities of your goal. But since it hurts to accept that you were the one who
committed the mistake, you take shelter behind the concept of fate, and blame
it on your karma. This relieves you of the terrible pain of knowing and
accepting the defeat.
There is no such thing as fate. We should believe in ourselves. This is the
only logical way of thinking. And I completely refute the idea that all events are
predetermined by a hidden supernatural power. We are NOT just like instruments
in some grand design and nothing else! None of our thoughts and actions are predestined.
Comments
Post a Comment