Every motivational book I have says that I am the master of my own fate and the decider of my own destiny. I believe that this statement is only partly true. Are there not times that no matter what you do and how persistent you are…reality will not bend to your will or desire? Isn’t success a combination of the following basic elements?
talent
hard work
luck
timing
connections with the “right” people
persistence
No matter how hard I worked and how persistent I was, I failed to achieve the career goal I worked toward and I failed to be with the girl that my heart desperately desired to be with. I don’t understand how I am the “master of my own fate”…my experience shows me that Life involves a great amount of luck. I feel very depressed over the way things have turned out for me and I feel like the motivational speakers [and other people in my life] were not telling me the whole truth that “anyone can do anything if they really want to”.
I’m interested in your comments…do you believe that you are the “master of your own fate”? Do you believe in luck? Or combination of both…? If possible, can you please give an example?
Being the “master of my fate” simply means that no matter what sort of horrible things happen to me I am the only one who can pick myself back up and try to get out from under them.
I agree that no matter what you do, there are some goals you are NOT guaranteed to reach.
For example, lots of folks REALLY want to be U.S. President. Obviously, not all those people will make it.
A more down-to-earth example: There’s no way for a man to be sure of getting a particular girl.
But, if you work at it, you’ll have a good shot at being reasonably successful in your carreer and getting a girl you’re pretty happy with. My hubby recommends http://www.seduction.com to this end. Apparently, one of the biggest mistakes is to set your sights on one particular girl.
I would have to say that no one is master of their fate. There are way to many uncontrollable random effects in life. Hell I could get killed by a bus the next time I walk down the street.
I think the most anyone can hope for is that they are a master of those things under there control. If you want something you can try and figure out the best way to achieve it but that does not mean it will happen. I think many people would be much happier if they realized this.
People should try and make the best choices they can and then live with and deal with the consequences of those decisions.
… I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul.
Certainly, our lives are a combination of chance and choice, and there are many events that one cannot but deal with. Children from severely disadvantaged homes are going to encounter mountainous obstacles, and to treat them as though they just lack pluck is to act without compassion. Then there are psychological factors; one can argue that the purpose of the exploration of one’s shadow is to gain conscious control over one’s acts. To the extent that we don’t have this, we have difficulty controlling ourselves.
But within the realm of the possible, we can alter the course of our lives; we can choose to commit or not commit various actions; we can shape our lives as we see fit, and commit ethical (and unethical) actions. There’s no reason to suppose we can’t.
As others have implied and matt_mcl has stated, the difference, the single elemental force that makes you the “master of your own fate” is the sigularly human trait of being able to choose your actions, and, perhaps more importantly, your response to the actions of others.
You may not have been able to get the job you wanted - are you going to mope about it, or move on and find something else to do? You may not have been able to get the girl - will you learn how to get on with your life, or will you forever long for “what might have been?”
Your ability to choose your reactions, the thought process between event and response, is completely within your control.
Now, master of your domain, well, that’s another topic.
To the degree that I am capable of dealing with life’s mundanities as well as the unforeseen, random occurrences that affect us all, then, yes, I am the master of my own fate.
To the degree of effort I spend in securing my position in life through hard work, study, and stick-to-it-ive-ness, then, yes, I am the master of my own fate.
To the degree that I am responsible for my own happiness, yes, I am the master of my own fate.
Except when the Vikings lose. Then it’s their fault.
As some others have already said, I believe that we have the capacity to make our own decisions about the actions we take. The outcomes of those decisions, however, are still limited by the essentially arbitrary nature of the universe, and by our inability to control the actions of others.
Take your typical car accident: you’re driving along, someone runs a stop sign or cuts you off or whatever, and you hit them. Think of all of the small, seemingly insignificant, but conscious decisions you made that led up to you and another person fighting over the same section of highway. If you’d decided not to eat breakfast, or decided to take a dump when you got to work instead of at home, the accident wouldn’t have happened. So a set of conscious decisions produced a completely unexpected result. It doesn’t mean that every decision will result in something unexpected, just that we shouldn’t be too surprised when it does. That’s about the best we can hope for.
For me to be master of my own fate, wouldn’t I need to have a fate to begin with? I mean, the very use of the word “fate” kinda implies a predestination, doesn’t it?
“You cannot alter your fate, my prince. However, you may rise to meet it if you choose.”
Basically, you can only choose how you meet life, and how you impact the lives of others. How people treat you is ultimately their choice.
I don’t believe in fate in the traditional sense, I dislike the idea that all events are predetermined. It makes the universe boring :).
I do refer to it, however, as a synonym for luck, chance, or fortune. I’ll refer to someone’s fate, but only in the sense that said event is what ended up happening to him.
Gödel once supposedly proved that if you assume that everything is predetermined, you cannot find anything that would contradict this assumption – and that if you assume that some things are not predetermined, but are in fact truly random, you cannot find anything that would contradict this assumption either.
A consequence of this theorem is that if events are fated to happen, we have no way of telling what this fate is until it’s already occurred. (And incidentally, if events are indeed “fated” to occur, this does not necessarily imply that this fate was planned by any entity or deity.)
“There is no such thing as luck. There are only differing abilities to cope with a statistical universe.” - Robert Heinlein.
Aside from the things in our direct control, there are numerous random events that happen to us in our lives. How successful you are has a lot to do with your ability to cope with those events.
For example, let’s a say a guy studies hard in school and excels in his field. He goes to work for a decent company, but one day has the good luck to run into the CEO of a fortune 500 company, who was struck by the man’s skills and offered him a VP position. Did he get ‘lucky’? Sure. But if it hadn’t been for the work and preparation that this guy did, that chance encounter would have wound up as nothing more than an anecdote over beers with his co-workers.
I have a friend who is always talking about how much bad luck he’s had in his life. He’s not successful, and he can point to some honest-to-god bad luck that happened to him and sabotaged him. And he’s right about some of those events. However, he has also had more chances and good luck than anyone I know - he just screwed it up. So he forgets about those events, and remembers the bad ones (and we all have bad luck at one time or another). He’s convinced that life has handed him a bum deal.
