By Imou Eparis
You miss your morning bus by a few seconds and have to wait for the next one, that’s taking longer than usual to arrive. Amid your frustration, a handsome stranger says hey to you. At that moment you forget all your troubles and smile at this fine- wine-looking man and hope he is going to get on the bus as you. He does, and that’s not all, he seats next to you, and to your luck, he is a chatty Cathy! The conversation lasts the entire ride to your workplace. You two really hit it off and now he has your number and is already planning to see you again. Five years later you and him are married and expecting your first child. You look back and see that it was fate that brought you together that day.
The existence of a supernatural force controlling or predetermining our future sounds like something you would hear about in a fiction movie, yet it’s talked about and believed by many in our world today. Fate as it is termed is an event or course of events that will inevitably happen in the future. Fate tells us everything in our lives is already predetermined but is it really?
There are some things I agree are predetermined, for instance, your family was predetermined, the environment you were born in was predetermined way before you were born, your school, your culture, your tribe, how ugly you look on your national ID, all of these things are predetermined and you can’t do anything to change them (you could try asking for another ID photo but it will be the same trust me I have tried ooh!) I will say, these situations described above are fate.
The things that are not predetermined however are plenty, things like who you will marry or how well you will do in your exams, or who you will vote for in the next election. These things I have mentioned are only determined by yourself. You decide who you will date or marry. A handsome stranger won’t meet you at the bus stop and confess his undying love for you. He doesn’t know you, you creep! How well you do in your exams is determined by how much you care and put into your academics. Who you vote for next is determined by the company you keep, the conversations you have been having, where you live, and what you read. All these situations are all based on the choices you make or have been making.
Choices guided by your convictions rather than chance, determine your fate. How wise have your decisions been in the past? Have you dated just anyone who showed you interest? Have you prayed for help to succeed in your exams without actually studying for them? Have you let past failure dictate your future? Well, I am telling you now that that isn’t the end of the story, you shouldn’t just be willing to take whatever life hands you on a plate, throw the plate away and make your own meal!
You may have been a victim to chance but it’s not too late to change your story. Your present choices will determine the rest of your life. I will conclude by saying we are all masters of our fate, nothing of our future has been written yet because we are the ones writing it, through our choices.
Imou Eparis is a student of Literature and Linguistics at Kenyatta University.
