# Fortune telling - does it work??
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-telling-does-it-work/157629
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 26, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-telling-does-it-work/157629 "2003-02-26T14:11:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jct103](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jct103)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-telling-does-it-work/157629/1 "2003-02-26T14:11:19Z")
I believe in destiny and am gullable enough to believe a fifteen year old girl who read my palm and told me I won’t meet the man I am to marry until I am 28.
Have any of you ever had your fortune told and seen it come true??
Please share it with me, I love hearing about this stuff!!
Thanks
Jo 😉
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### Author:  [@Triss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triss)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-telling-does-it-work/157629/2 "2003-02-26T14:17:02Z")
You might find some valuable information here.
I offer this in the kindest possible way. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Tone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tone)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-telling-does-it-work/157629/3 "2003-02-26T14:25:02Z")
by saying that you will meet the man of your dreams when you are 28 she is laying in your subconcious (sp?) that you wont meet the man that will make you happy untill you are 28…
you wont let yourlself meet the person that you consider perfect untill you are 28… anyone you meet between now and then wont cut it for you… you wont let them.
you make your future.
Tone
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### Author:  [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2003, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-telling-does-it-work/157629/4 "2003-02-26T14:32:36Z")
Destiny is for chumps. Is it really comforting to think that you have absolutely no control over your own life? And to think they call _skeptics_ depressing!
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### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-telling-does-it-work/157629/5 "2003-02-26T15:20:46Z")
I had an aunt who listened to a fortune teller who told her that my uncle was stifling her. She divorced him and left him with 3 little girls. She spent some very miserable years before dying alone. One of her daughters was so affected by her mother leaving, she turned to drugs and wound up in prison for theft. No one in the family has seen her in years.
Yeah. Destiny. Right.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fortune-telling-does-it-work/157629/6 "2003-02-26T15:39:18Z")
From what I can tell, it will work if you want it to. But your life is not fixed, and I would say that you have more influence over it than your 15-year-old reader would have you believe.
My wife reads tarot cards. She does it for friends as a hobby; in her case, it really is “for entertainment purposes only,” and she charges nothing for it.
When she does a reading, she uses a set of forms she designed. They record the positions of the cards, and her interpretation of what she sees in them, so the querent has a record of the reading. At the end of the forms, though, she includes the following caveat:
> [@](#):
>
> You are solely responsible for how you handle the insights you have gained through this reading…
>
> The tarot can … help you to gain knowledge and understanding about yourself. By using the insight gained from your reading, _you are better prepared to to direct your future in such a way that you are in control of the outcome._ You have the tools and the power to impact your own future with the insights you have explored through this reading, and the reading will be effective only if you take personal responsibility to act in accordance with your heart’s desire.
(Emphasis mine.)
In other words, **jct103** , if you want to believe that you won’t meet the man you are to marry until you are 28, then go ahead and believe it. But also know that you don’t have to wait that long if you don’t want to–you may well indeed meet somebody before then.
Have fun with it; it really can be entertaining. But always remember that’s all it is, and you are the one who ultimately decides your own future. Don’t let a palm or card or tea-leaf or ouija board reader do it for you.