Day 122 (Recall) Predestination

I'm really into Bollywood films.Yeah, the kind where they bust into 10-minute songs with random "hip" English thrown in, everyone wears clothes that literally drip in sequins and glitter, and where mystical winds blow in even though the scene is indoors and all the windows/doors are clearly closed.

EPIC movie. Go watch it if you have 3 hours to spare.

Anyway, one thing that I started noticing when watching these movies was that, prior to getting married, an Indian couple consults with a guru who looks at their...astrology I guess (date/time/place that they were born) to figure out the most auspicious day for the couple to be wed. I always thought it was a really cute and oddly spiritual concept, but the scenes in movies always made me wonder if one guru ever looked at a couple's astrology and went, "Hellz nah this shit ain't gon' neva happen!"

Astrology has been one of those really funny things that you rely on a lot when you're young and want to believe in the good things that might come that Cosmopolitan insists will happen. In fact, Shay got really into it a while ago and found a book that was maybe as thick as my nursing books that had super specific attributes based on the actual date of your birth and even detailed how you interact with people of other signs.

Now, I don't believe in destiny. I don't believe that your entire life is a set route from point A to point B. I think that all that exists is a Point A, where you start, and that Point B is the grave, and how you get there is really all up to you and the choices you make. One choices opens out a set of options, and each new choice leads to yet another set of options and so forth.

My perception of reality

So the idea that when/where you're born will set a path for you is just a little...silly. I mean, sure, what decade and socioeconomic class you're born into will definitely determine the opportunities that are going to be available to you and thus, your future, but the stars? I'm not too sure on that matter. Maybe it's in my fervent belief in free will; the idea that you are the one in control and that we're not all just characters on someone else's universal game of Sims.

Do I absolve a higher power though? No way.

When things don't go my way, I (or one of my endlessly awesome friends) tells me that, "It's okay. This is how it's supposed to be."

Throughout nursing school, there were times, really dark and black times that I really didn't know if I was going to make it, physically, mentally and scholarly. I questioned my resolve and abilities a few hundred times over and found myself making a deal with the universe before every huge exam,

"This will happen because it's supposed to. And if it doesn't, I know it's because there's something else for me out there."

It was kind of a cop-out, to pull the responsibility from my own hands and attribute my success to the Higher Calling. But after every passed exam, I still wondered if it happened because it really was written in stone by the Nursing gods or if it was just really dumb, dumb luck.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, our lives aren't a set amount of steps or miles in getting where we need to go. It's a road trip and you can take as many stops wherever the fuck you wanna.

There is no destiny, just a world you carve for yourself from the tools you're given. 

Written 3/31/11