Fate, Destiny, Life Full of Coincidences

I just got done watching a movie called the 500 days of summer. It really doesn’t matter about the plot of the movie, but what does matter were some of the closing sentences, that inspired a distinct thought in my mind. The words were, “He thought he knew that in life there was no fate, that destiny was nonexistent, that life was only full of coincidences. Well, he was pretty sure.” This idea was intriguing to me. Life being full of unique coincidences that make of the paths that we take in life, the people we meet, the individuals we love, and even the DNA combination that makes us who we are.

I have been a man who always believed that fate and destiny were complex terms. In my mind, people make up their own destinies based upon the decisions they make while on this great Earth. My definition of destiny and fate may be different then a lot of people’s but that’s what I think. When a woman makes a decision to go to the café at 12:24pm and orders a 24 ounce no-sugar added caramel flavored latte that is her decision. The fact that when’s she’s there she meets a man, who made the decision to ask an attractive young lady what book she was reading, is purely the result of a multitude of decisions both of them made. But what if that’s not the case. Some people believe that it was coincidence that they arrived at the same time at the local coffee shop, and it was fate that those two met, and it was their destiny that 3 years later, they were husband and wife. See now that is an interesting idea.

I have trouble with this thought process though. I want to believe that the fact that they made these decisions was based upon some cognitive reasoning, or even an instinctive habit. But maybe fate led them both to the same location and really their decision to go to grab coffee was a piece of their destiny, to be married. I have to laugh internally at this, because I can’t prove either way is right.

In the movie, the main male character believed that fate would lead him to his soul mate and he would fall in love. His thought process turned dramatically to not believing any of that and thinking that life was just full of coincidences. I guess you would say that I think that fate and destiny are reasonable ideas which would be a paradoxical view of what many think they are. But maybe it’s both, maybe life is full of coincidences that lead you down a certain path and you make a decision based upon some logical procedure, therefore creating your own destiny. At least, I’m pretty sure.