The magical, mystical future
This makes it clear that I was meant to manage a shoe store. (Image by komahouse)
Maybe someone has been helped by the idea that there is a divine plan for them — a destiny that was predetermined, combined with gifts that were bestowed upon them at conception.
That destiny is out there, if only they can find it. It is the purpose of a life to solve the mystery of who you are supposed to be and realize your true potential.
If this concept helps you, great! If not, no problem. It has no basis in reality. Such a notion is described exactly nowhere in holy books of the world’s religions, except in the most vague terms. Wherever this idea came from, it wasn’t sent from on high. And I haven’t dug into the research, but I don’t think it came from science, either.
Though this concept could be something benign that we can just take or leave, I have observed that it is so thoroughly embedded in our culture that it causes a lot of damage. We buy into it without even realizing that we’ve bought into it, which is dangerous.
In fact, this belief in fate, wherever it came from, causes a lot of unnecessary misery. What causes me the most suffering is the thought that I have somehow deviated from what I was meant to do — that somewhere, in a parallel universe, I have loving children (maybe even grandchildren by now), I’m enjoying a successful career as a songwriter, and someone owes me their life because I was in the right place at the right time to give them the Heimlich maneuver.
It’s a horrible feeling to think that life has a right answer and you picked the wrong one. And it was even a multiple-choice test.
I fully believe, however, that we don’t have to suffer like this. No one can prove or disprove the hypothesis that you or I messed up some plan that was laid out for us.
And no one can prove or disprove that there is some magical, mystical future we’re being called toward -- or that it must take any particular form.
Thus, we can believe whatever helps us to make our lives joyful and meaningful right now. If that is the satisfaction of living in a godless, chaotic universe, fine. If that is the belief in a loving God who can guide your choices, A-OK. If you find comfort in the idea that you create your own reality, good for you. If you prefer to think that we’re living in a simulation and none of this is real, that’s allowed, too.
And if you want to believe that there’s a right course and you just have to find it, I wish you luck on your quest.
As I see it, the world is complex and interesting enough that we can constantly find new things to surprise and fascinate us. We can uproot ourselves from the way we’ve always done things and live a new life in a new place. We can make peace with our past and leave it behind, or we can stay there if we choose.
There isn’t a wrong way — any way, we learn. That’s a belief, too, but a very useful one.
As a matter of fact, there is a shining, limitless future that rides out ahead of us. It is not static — it changes when we change. It follows us even as we are chasing it. I’m not going to say that it can be whatever we want it to be because I don’t think we have that kind of control. But I think it is what we make it.
