Seven

A friend of a friend struggles every day to prove that there is no such a thing as fate or destiny, but that life is all about cause and effect, and coincidence. Not to defy God and his plans or cliché-loving couples promising that they were meant for each other -- it's just a matter of pride. Perhaps because most people think, whether they accept it or not, that there is a superior force that controls their lives, and he can just not stand the idea of not being able of controlling his.

Why give credit of your achievements to someone or something else? It was you who scored that goal, because you passed right through their line of defense, and their goalie was thinking of what he'd eat once he gets home and didn't realize you shot until the ball hit his cheek and went in just like that. Or why blame fate that you haven't met the girl of your life yet? It was you who decided to talk to the blonde girl with big breasts instead of the nerd behind her. Better luck next time! Right after you left with the blondie that would later cheat on you, a beautiful brunette entered the room seeking a lover and it could've been you. But it wasn't.

The friend of my friend and I discuss about causes and effects, and how everything is related to everything, even if they don't connect directly. He explains that it's like the six-degree separation theory but in a much bigger scale, for we talk about actions and not just people -- there might be six billion people in the planet, but each of them performs an average of 2,000 actions per day, and that's what affects our lives, not just being who we are.

By the way, he adds, 90% of stadistics are made up on the spot, and most of them are wrong, but one thing leads to another, and it goes on and on, forth and back, whichever way you rather look at it, like the time an old lady read his hand at a fair a couple of years ago and told him he'd have a baby before his 20th birthday. He is 19 and remains a virgin just to prove that such a prediction was wrong.

Take pride and responsibility in who you are and what you've achieved. Thank God for your talents, but learn to appreciate that the products and whatever results from them depends on you only, and how you cultivate them.

"They said it'd be sunny today. Let's make it rain"