Do You Believe In Destiny Or Choice???

Question

I use to belive that somethings are just meant to be but now I believe in that less.You cant just sit on you couch at home and wait for the love of your life to come knocking on your door with a paycheck everyweek.If things were planned out for us then why are we faced with choices and big decisions?Which leads me to ask why would there also be such a thing as regret if things were meant to be.Why do some of us live to be old while others die at birth,how is that meant to be?If your mom got hit by a car in front of you would you just stand there and wait for destiny to help her or would you get up and take her to the hospital?If you love something do you let it go and wait and see if it comes back or do you fight to keep it?We cant just sit around waiting for things to happen,we gotta make moves in our lives.What do you think?

Answer 1

Choice Loads the Gun Destiny Pulls the trigger,they are both the reality,choice affects the outcome of our destiny.Choice leads us to the path that is to be the final destiny of our lives,there are always twists and turns in our Life journey they affect the outcome either positively or negatively.

Answer 2

The problem with this issue is that you can never really know for sure. If all things are destined to be and we have no free choice, then everything I do will happen, does happen, and has happened. My answering this question was guaranteed from the beginning, and people who end up sitting on their couch waiting for the love of their life were destined to do this. There is no way to test whether my choices are free or not.

My actual view is that we have free choice within the limits of our situation and the seeming randomness of events. Of course nothing is truly random, it's just that we don't know enough to be able to predict and understand everything that does happen. Within this framework of destiny, we can make many small choices that, over the course of a lifetime, add up to significantly impact what we do and who we became.

Still, in the longest run we are the victims of destiny - we all die, and eventually humanity will die, the various bits of the universe will either expand and fall apart or colllapse and be reborn, leaving us with no choice in the matter. Luckily we don't live in the long run, and in the short run choice can matter a lot.

Answer 3

Human beings, as well as animals and inanimate events have the ability to break the chains of strict causality postulated by destiny (some call it Determinism). We are thus free to influence our affairs and our destiny.

In changing our future from what it would have been without the interaction triggered by our free will, we are changing the very universe of which we are an integral part. With the intervention of free will, our future, and thus the future of the universe, will follow a path different from the path it would have pursued without our intervention.

In addition to scientific considerations, common sense insists that Free Will exists. Who would deny that we have Free Will when we put one foot in front of the other and decide, of our own volition, of our own Free Will, to go for a walk or not go for a walk? It is clearly irrational to believe that a chain of causality at the time of the Big Bang determines if we go for a walk this afternoon, or not.

Some might say we humans don't know the 'big plan' of god's or other sentient being. But when you bring in the supernatural explanation, there's no more arguing, for all reason is thrown out the door.

Answer 4

Wouldn't it be nice if all our lives were predestined. I wouldn't deal with half as many problems I have today if my life was determined by a thing called destiny. I was raised by my dad who taught me from an early age that the outcome of our lives depends on the many decisions along the way. How many people do you know have sat on their butt their entire life and can say they have done something meaningful. We are faced my choices everyday whether difficult or small. It can be the simplest of choices and can make the biggest impact on the people around you. You can choose to be the one who sits on the couch waiting for destiny to knock on your door, or you can make a choice and wander off and discover the world for yourself. If I had a "choice" between a destined life or choice, I would without a doubt choose the more adventurous one--what if I was unlucky, who knows what kind of life destiny would hand me?...

Answer 5

We all choose our Destinies, which sounds like an inherantly contradictory paradox, and it is. But it is no less true.

Obviously we all have choice, but to what extent that choice is influenced by matters beyond our control, we can only ponder.

A good case can be made that, no matter how much choice we exercise, it is controlled and influenced by events and experiences which occur while we lack self-determining choices.

This case can be reinforced when we consider that most people are hardly subjective about their choices, and tend to act out of prejudice and personal bias.

It's a result of this 'unconsidered' existence that results in 'regrets.' Regrets are unresolved human responses to losses.

Loss is essential and necessary to growth and life itself, but the human organism is terrorized when loss occurs too quickly or without explanation.

Unfortunately, we may never receive a satisfactory explanation to assuage our fears and remove our regrets. Consequently, we have to find a path to 'self-actualize' our losses.

For example, 'Why did my partner die so young 17 years ago this month?' is evidence of a loss. 'My partner lived a fulfilling life and died at the right time,' is acceptance. When I accept things, just as they are, and not as I wish them to be, regret begins to fade.

'What did I learn from my late partner's beautiful life and untimely death?' -- when I ask this question, I begin to proactively choose enlightenment over confusion, and I place regret in its proper perspective.

As a result, I participate, or 'choose' my Destiny, which is a life which leads, not toward ever increasing hurt, regret and resentment, but toward wholeness, wisdom, and clarity.

Time heals, if I choose to release and forgive. If not, I will be locked in a 'paralysis of being' until I let go and stop insisting on understanding everything in the Universe.

Alas, the price of wisdom is not always small nor easy.

Answer 6

Choice. It's all about choice. And it's not just the choices that we make on the conscious level in this physical plane of reality, but the choices we make at the soul or spiritual level in the non-physical dimension that affect us too. Why do children die at birth or very young? They probably chose, pre-birth not to live a prolonged existence, but to use the brevity of their lives to teach someone something. Maybe their parents. Maybe their brief lives set their parents on a completely different and better path than if they had never been born. Maybe it gives those people the gift of compassion for others, that they would never have known otherwise in this lifetime. We can't know...

Answer 7

Destiny DOES NOT = PASSIVE Choice DOES NOT = AN ABSENCE OF DESTINY.
We all have our own unique potential, our own path.
We chose to listen to the still small voice of truth within or we don't.
We chose to make our decisions with love motive not fear.
We choose to be accountable, mature responsible and grateful.
We live up to our potential destiny perfectly........and sometimes we dare to dream, just maybe becoming aware enough to hear the Divine assuring us we are loved and OK and beautiful.
Our lives are full of choice, but I tend to think God already knows each step we take before we are born......hence the destiny....Even if it takes a lifetime to awake it is still a destiny.

Answer 8

I think you're pretty much spot on. You can ride the wave or swim in a different direction. There are limits. Reminds me of a southern comedian, talking about a big athletic guy who thinks that he can go out in a force 4 hurricane because its just wind. "It's not that the wind is blowing.... its what the wind is blowing. If you get hit by a Volvo flying through the air, it don't matter how many sit-ups you did that morning."

But unless the event is life-ending we still get to choose how we will react to the hand we're dealt.

Peace

Answer 9

It could be both, for example the fact that YOU dont know your destiny excludes us from knowing. But you still have and make choices. I choose to put on a seat belt when I drive, I choose to take vitamins, etc. But "it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgement". We will all die one day-thats destiny for us. Its a choice of how we live our lives that count.

Answer 10

Choice is the rudder of the moment to moment existence we endure and reside in. How can anyone believe in a mythic idea like destiny or christian predestination.

There is no tomorrow only Now. Yesterday is gone, live in the nano that exists.