“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
