Fate Is What It Is

 

 

“As fate would have it,”

I’ve often heard uttered

Or, “Don’t tempt fate,”

When daredevilry takes another.

 

As though fate is a spirit

Just hovering around

Waiting for some opportunity

To take someone down.

 

A certain resignation

To some predestined destiny

Like “Que sera-sera”

“What will be will be”.

 

Like fate is always bad

Though very often it is

Causing us more often than not

That bad to reminisce.

 

 

Fate is a timeline

On which there are events:

Some good and some bad

Whatever one’s intent.

 

Which suggests to me:

We can determine our fate

Depending on the lifestyle

That we choose to take.

 

Fate is an outcome

But based on the process too,

Fate is actions and outcomes

Aka the things we do.

 

While we live life forward

We analyze it from the back

And however brilliant our analysis

It’s after we’ve been trapped.

  

When it is the good fate

We make boastful claims,

But when it is ill fated

We apportion the blame.

 

 

But back to the timeline

And those inevitable events:

The good ones we plan for

And the bad ones we resent.

 

Some lives seem plagued

With an unfair share of the bad,

And these are oft inundated

With fate that makes one sad.

 

For many others, however,

The opposite holds true,

These enjoy the good life

Regardless of what they do.

 

Still there are others

That experience a balanced mix

As though already weighed out

And appropriately affixed.

 

For the most part, though,

Group 2 is the hapless one

Forced into resignation

As though all hope is gone.

 

People make their own fate

I have heard some tell

But some did the right things

And life was a living hell.

 

 

To me this is unexplainable

Though some try to explain,

Fate is what it is

Whether pleasure or pain.

    

It comprises every event

And will inevitably occur:

Some are good and some bad

But to the bad we mostly refer.

 

The behaviours we practise

Constitute these timeline events

As well as the outcomes

Whether or not our intent.

 

Fate is every action we take

As well as every outcome,

All registered on the timeline

Whether to come or already done.

 

Stewart Russell © June 2020