The author writes, “Can we grasp the instant when our fate turns? Or can we understand it only later, once the moment grows into a memory?” What do you think? Do you have a moment when your fate turned, and did you know it at the time?
I have had moments when a decision turned my fate, and only later did I realize how different things might have been if not for that turn.
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My fate has turned several times - when my family moved from one town to another in my teens, I met new friends who became life-long friends and heavily influenced me, especially, in terms of pursuing college. My classes changed my fate by sending me to a career of speech pathology rather than the radio-tv or airline employee that I was comtemplating. My fate turned again when I took a part-time job in college and met my future husband. The birth of each of my children has resulted in enhancing my life by bringing their friends, interests and spouses’ families into my life. Then, my fate changed when returning to my career became necessary. Once again, my fate changed when I was widowed at a relatively young age and had to decide what to do with the rest of my life. Since I am not yet at death’s door, my fate may yet change. Probably even the small changes we make every day, even like which book we read, changes our fates in tiny but definite ways.
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There was a movie several years back that I think about often: Sliding Doors, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. In it, she rushes home from work, but then the timeline splits; in one version of her life she catches her train, in another, she doesn’t. Her two lives play out completely differently. A book along those lines is The Midnight Library, where the protagonist gets to see what her life would have been like had she made different choices along the way. So it’s a concept I ponder often.
In my own life, as Rita mentions, any little action such as reading a specific book could influence the trajectory of our lives (“The Butterfly Effect”).
I do remember that soon after I got divorced, I met a man. We hit it off, & he asked if I wanted to get a frozen yogurt with him. “No, I’m tired, I’m going to go home,” I replied. As I put the key in my car’s door look, I realized, “Hey! That man was asking me out!” I turned around & said I’d changed my mind, I’d love to have a frozen yogurt with him. We’re still together 34 years later.
Great Story! I often think about choices I didn’t make–didn’t go to med school, didn’t choose a different college, didn’t change careers. And I wonder where it would have taken me. However, I look at my life – I loved my job, and have three children. I often think, if I’d changed any of the above, maybe a child wouldn’t exist or a grandchild. So I accept my choices and am happy. Now my fate was sealed, when I quit one college to join a commune. Which never happened, instead I came home, I got a job that became a profession, went to a difficult college, met my husband, and am here where I am now.
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Right, @Sonya_M? I had some times in my life that weren’t all that great, but they made me who I am, and if any minor thing had changed I wouldn’t have met my husband or have the life I have now. I’m happy with my life so there’s not a thing I’d change.
@Sonya_M Your “story” and mine are almost parallel. Was it fate or was it simply decisions I had based on where I was in life at the time and/or the information I had on which to base those decisions? I’m inclined to think for me, it was the latter. But that is not to say that it couldn’t be fate for others.
I tend to think of fate in a more dramatic or romantic way: The person who doesn’t get on the plane that later crashes, the person who meets their long lost love again in a faraway place neither would have expected to be in, etc.