Your life, the little pocket of time which you rent, is a series of these happenings, which happen to you.
However,
Do you believe that things happen to you... or that you make things happen?
I've always been one that has believed in fate.
Perhaps it's from reading too many fantasy books as a kid, watching too many Disney films, or the lacklustre relationship I have had with any form of religion, but for me, fate has always been the reassurance.
It's okay, it doesn't matter how much you screw up, the mistakes you make or the things you regret in your life, because you were always supposed to do them. Whatever you are doing now, must be the right thing, otherwise fate wouldn't allow you to do it. Your life is pitter-pattering along a pre-destined path that has a finite start and a finite end. Everything happens for a reason.
But only recently, have I realised that I was mistaken.
It's not that I was wrong, it's just that I wasn't quite right.
The build up during the Days of Silver Uncertainty and through creating Scarphelia, I have come to formulate that perhaps there is not just one path per life, that we dawdle along day-by-day, but, perhaps there are almost infinite little threads that we could be on, from one same starting point but to a million different end points, and where we end up, is based on the decisions we make throughout our time.
The best example I can think of to illustrate what I mean, is the album artwork for Alt-J's incredible album 'An Awesome Wave.'
At birth, you start at the base of life, like the bottom of the picture. Your childhood years are mostly externally controlled and consistent, so you stay in the same position. But then you reach adolescence, and find your independent freedom, beginning to make decisions for yourself. That is when your destiny begins to change.
Like the countless strings of thread stemming from a knot in rope, or the infinite roots sprawling into the soil under a great oak tree, or the little capillaries, veins and arteries that fill your very body. Then at the top, at the very end of your life there is the finish line, with each individual thread finishing, but at completely different points, completely different scenarios and situations in which your life turns out to be.
Picking your module choices in education.
Which carriage of the train you get on.
Changing your mind and deciding to go against the beverage you normally get at the coffee house.
Having a random conversation with a stranger.
Not buying that dress you're not sure you can afford.
Every single decision, action and choice that you make, will affect the thread of life which you are on, and at what point of future you will end up at.
Curious, huh?
But imagine, just imagine.
How about, if in the centre of that, there is one golden path, one absolute destiny, the one true fateful path that was your sole destiny, where you achieve everything you want and were meant to have, and find true happiness, success and peace of mind.
And what if, you live your life not once, but were reincarnated as the same person over and over again at the same starting point, your life travelling on a different path each time to the end, until, by process of elimination, you finally make all the 'right' decisions, and you travel the golden path to destiny?
And only then your soul can transgress forward to heaven, or to a higher state, or whatever it is that you believe? Like a video game where you return to your last saved point, that being birth, and every time you die before you complete the level, you go back to that point and you try again until you do it.
I like to think, perhaps, this is real.
I am an extremely lucky person.
Because I chose to be lucky.
I take chances, I talk to strangers, I seek silverness wherever I can, and it pays off so beautifully.
"Fortune favours the brave."
"Forever remain curious, refuse to remain unremarkable."
These are the motto's which I live by, for the reason that they work.
I believe you create your own luck by taking chances and I bleieve that by forcibly manipulating your own decisions, doing things you wouldn't normally do, saying 'screw it!' to dull routine and mundane life, and stepping out of your comfort zone, you can chose to cross your path over, and step straight into your one true fateful path.
For this reason, I truly believe that I have found my Golden path.
I am not letting life happen to me, I am making life happen for me, and the world is my oyster simply because I have the mindset to accept that it is, and use that to it's full advantage.
And in the words of one of my favourite bands, Florence & The Machine;
'You can't hold me down, 'cause I belong to the hurricane.'
If you are interested by this idea, then you definitely need to read this story here, The Egg by Andy Weir.
Take a chance, choose to be lucky, choose to live on your golden path.
Our fate is within us, you just have to be brave enough to see it.
Scarlet-Ophelia.