A question of fate or choice?

Question

I just tripped over my shoe and would have bashed my head off the wall if my hand hadn't shot up to catch myself. Then it hit me, through all the complex intricasies that we interpret as truly astonishing and unlikely that make up our human history, how can it not have been fated, all those choices made that brought us here and keep us going even as you read this?

Answer 1

I think before we journey down to earth, we carefully intigrate what we want to get out of this life. We set up all our ambitions and attributes.
Our entire life, before we are born. Then when e make it out of the birth canal, we forget everything we had set up. And it's God's Job to keep us to our own path. So really wwe are controlling our own lives, without knowing it, God is just guiding us, reminding us what we are suposed to be doing.

So to answer your question, Choice and fate are one in the same.

Answer 2

I think fate and choice go hand in hand. I don't think that ALL decisions and things that happen in life are based on pure fate. I do believe we have some control over our lives because that is the point of being here on earth - we are here to learn from our own mistakes. But I do think fate plays a hand in some instances - if it's not our time to die, we will survive - not because of our own choice, but because of some higher power. You see crazy people take risks all the time and not end up dead. Then others you see are prudent and take so much care and end up tripping and hitting their head just so and dying.

Answer 3

Choice isn't absolute and neither is fate. Some choices are so complex that you can really notice that you are making a choice, while other choices are so simple and so clearly "weighted" to one side that you make the choice to break your own fall without noticing that you made a choice. But you did.
You didn't "choose" to be born. Your mind wasn't developed enough yet for you to be conscious of making a choice. All the same, the sperm and the egg that led to the conception of "you" made themselves available to become a living human and that was a kind of elementary "choosing".
You probably won't "choose" to die, but-peace be upon you- if you live to be a very old person, eventually you will know that you are just too tired and too broken-down to continue living happily and you will "go" gladly. That's what my grandmother did.
Each of us makes some choices. The strongest of us make more and better choices, but none of us really makes every single choice that affects our own life.
But it isn't all "fate" either. It's some of each.

Answer 4

Life is like a decision tree traversal. from each point of life there are several possible moves ahead. Each step we make is governed either automatically by certain entropy or by our own decisions which are definitive. The set of possibilities that stand before us after each step would depend on the path that we took in the previous step. If event Y had happened at a certain step of life to us and that made us reach a certain destiny, if event X had happened at that step, we could have been somewhere else. But remember there is no looking back as in a decision tree there is no reverse traversal. Wah! what an extent of complexity exists in our life that makes it interesting!

The steps in the decision tree that are governed by the entropy term are what you call fate and the ones that you make by reasoning are choice.

In the above incident you mentioned, though your instincts came to your rescue and you managed to save your head, I wont call it a choice. It is mostly fate, as you didnt have any time to do a reasoning of the next step you had to make. Thank your fate as you are intact now ;)

Answer 5

If everything were governed by fate, then we would not be responsible for our actions. If we aren't responsible for anything that happens, why obey the laws of the land (or gravity, for that matter)? No one truly can believe in fate or else they wouldn't bother to do things like wear a seatbelt, apologize for something they did or said, sue someone for endangering a life, or avoid getting too near the edge of a cliff....

Answer 6

Well just because it's amazingly complex doesn't mean you don't have free will.

Albeit, I doubt any advocates of free will would say your recent scenario was an event under your control. Under certain conditions you're supposed to be able to exercise choice, to act for yourself, to shape your future, even though much of what goes on in the human organism happens automatically.

Answer 7

I believe it is a higher power that already has our fate destinted for us in our life. We are here to do a job, not sure what it is, but there is a reason for everything a everything has a reason. Our fate is already made for us, but some use to follow choice and I think you will find that answer if you search deep within your heart and soul.

Answer 8

Its choice,then choices making habits habits making fate and fate making choices go round.

Answer 9

Sounds like you have good reflexes..and to have good reflexes one must train the mind..as faith goes your luck you have arms ..if you were born without arms think of what might have happened...you'd be wearing a helmet right now.

Answer 10

*Everything without any exclusion is going according to plan.
*Everything that is meant to be will be and everything that is not, will not.
*Do when you can, don’t when you can’t.
*Think what you can, don’t what you can’t. (Ex. Think what you can do, instead of thinking what you can’t do).
*You are who you are and you do what you do, accept it, change what you want to change but don’t forget to accept that everything that is meant to be, will be, and everything that is not, will not.
*The plan is not good nor bad, it is natural, of nature.
*Every one has a right to have their own principles but feel free to use them, its 43.