The Fallacy of Fate

Written by Naren on December 15, 2008

You are a hard worker. You have been toiling all your life to make a better living for yourself and your family. You are a sincere and a moral person. You have always walked on the path of truth and honesty. You do not choose immoral methods to get what you want. You do not knit a web of lies to find your way to the top. You pray to God everyday from the bottom core of your heart. To summarize, you are a man of moral character, good discipline, religion and sincerity. Yet, you haven’t found success in your life. Your life is surrounded with miseries. You have failed tremendously.

On the other hand, your fellow worker or neighbor is crooked. He is dishonest, cunning, and corrupted. He would do anything to get what he wants. He takes all the wrong means and illegal paths. He is a big liar, untrustworthy, insincere, and immoral. Yet, he has managed to prevail in his life. He is more successful than you are. His house is bigger than yours. He drives a Mercedes Benz and your old Chevy needs several kicks to get started in the morning. His kids go to expensive school, yours dwell in some public school. He can afford to go on vacation every other month whereas you can barely treat your family to the movies. And, moreover, the guy seldom prays. If he does then it’s shallow and full of hypocrisy – just to show off in front of others.

You are bound to wonder, what has gone wrong in your life? Why, despite being a follower of truth and honesty, you have encountered failures, while the cunning guy next-door is able to reap the fruits of success? Why you are so miserable and he seems to be living a happy, jolly life?

As you start comprehending deeply you may remember what you have always learned as a child in school. Or, if you didn’t get a chance to go to school, then you may have heard it from your friends, family, or your priests – that “Truth always wins.”

Then, you pose these questions to yourself. Why haven’t I been a winner? Why haven’t I become successful? What has gone so awry? You try to find the answers to all these questions, which have arisen in your mind. Finally, you will come up with a satisfying answer. It goes like this, “Ah! It’s my fate. What can I do?” If you are unable to find an answer, then there will be plenty of people around you, who will give you the same reason for all your misfortune. There won’t be a shortage of people who will tell you, “It’s your fate. You cannot do anything against it. All these things had already been written in your birth chart. So, just chew on this fact and move ahead…”

You are so helpless and weakened by all the worries and stress, you can’t even say, “No. No, it’s not my fate. There must be something else.” You would rather hear that it’s your fate, or you were predestined for all these sufferings than go and seek out the real cause for all the problems. And anyway, by blaming it on fate, you have found a beautiful way to escape your failures. Fate provides a beautiful consolation for your broken heart; it provides a soothing balm to your wounded ego. Hence, it’s so easy to fall into the notion of fate.

Who is to be blamed?

We just discussed how fate or destiny, all provide a warm quilt for our failures. Fate is such an easy doorway to escape from our tales of woes and sufferings. But, who should we blame for all this make-believe. Who is responsible for this bogus hypothesis? Does fate have an entity of its own? Has anyone seen fate lurking around our window? No, yet the whole psychology of fate has been so deeply embedded in our mind that whenever something wrong occurs in our lives, we tend to believe it as a result of our fate. Things were meant to be such because it was already written by some fellow in our fate book.

People from Eastern societies have suffered more than those from the Western societies as this notion of fate is implanted into the mind of the child from the very beginning of his life. I myself was told that on the 12th day of my birth, some guy called “Bhabhi” (The Future God) had descended from heaven and wrote my fate on my forehead. Being an inquisitive kid, I used to ask, then why don’t people capture him and make him write only good things. And they would say that he is invisible and nobody would know what time he comes, writes fate and vanishes. See, I was already given a means to defend myself when things go awry in my life.

Fabricating the idea of “fate or destiny,” priests and so called moralists, protectors or preservers of the society have found a way to defend themselves when their statement, “Truth always wins” fails. And, yes, when the falsehood or lie emerges victorious, which we regularly witness in the real world, then there is always fate, your past life “karma”, your misdeeds from who knows how many previous lives, to blame upon. And, hence all your failures, miseries, misfortunes, and woes are determined by what had been written in your fate. The corrupt person succeeded also because of his fate. It’s written by God himself. Nobody can deny it. What can you do? Just accept it...

The whole feeding of the “fate” notion is akin to the consoling of a weeping child with sweets. Once the sweets are finished, he will be back to business. This beautiful consolation, this soothing balm, this web of lies, and this handful of sweets may give a person a temporary relief but not for a long time. The person may be alright for a moment but deep down he will remain miserable. The pangs of jealousy, failure and under achievements will haunt him all his lives. Hence, his whole life will be a tale of misery and sorrow.

What can be done?

It’s simple; but, takes tremendous effort to implement. Just by keenly observing the whole psychology behind fate or destiny and arriving at an understanding that “the idea of fate is simply a way of solace or temporary relief.” It is a beautiful comfort zone woven by yourself and others for your grief. What to do then? The fate psychology is so stuck in us that it’s hard to arrive at such an understanding.

Here are my suggestions:

Accept with Joy

Accept with joy whatever comes in life in its totality (Please read How to Live Life in its Totality). That means having the courage to accept sorrows, jealousy, anger, pain and your failures as they are. Failures are also part of life just as is happiness, so accept them, don’t run away from them. Without failures, what is the joy of being successful? Hence, do not comfort yourself by holding your fate responsible for your failures. Be willing to accept them with utmost joy and grace. The moment you do so you will feel a deep contentment rushing from all directions and permeating your entire being. No more will you need to cover yourself with the blanket of hopes and consolation. Once you face this truth then you won’t be miserable anymore. Remember: Lies make you miserable and guilty. Truth can pinch you, but only once. So be a little courageous and accept reality. The prime reason for your failures is your inability to accept things as they are. It’s not your fate or destiny. Understand this truth.

Also, the person who succeeded by hook and crook is not as happy as you may think. He knows the path he has taken to achieve success is not the right one. It’s not his fate or pre-destined luck; it’s the immoral approaches that he has undertaken that brought him success. So this person may lie to the world but not to himself. He cannot deceive the God which reigns inside his heart. He is fully aware of his crooked methods and this will torture his inner being all his life unless he adopts the path of truth and honesty again.

Trust

Simply have trust in yourself and the most gracious existence. It’s your point of view that determines failure or success. It’s your feeling of inner contentment that makes a big impact in your life. If you are perfectly happy with what you have or what’s been given to you by the existence then you are the most successful person in the world. On the contrary, you may have all the riches in the world and yet, you may remain in a miserable condition as you wish to have more and more. How much more can one have in this world? Desires cannot be fulfilled, no matter how much you try. It’s the intrinsic nature of desire to keep us thirsty forever. More thirst, more hunger … you can never quench the fire of desire. It will burn you eventually.

Hence, trust from the innermost core of your being, whatever happens in any circumstance; the divine existence is benevolent to all of us. We all belong to existence. We are all part of it. How can existence favor Mr. X and be hostile to Mr. Y? Existence is not prejudiced like our mind. It is our mind that has garnered all the junk of philosophies, doctrines, and ideologies that make us feel that we are the only ones to suffer. No, it cannot be true. Existence or the divine or God is compassionate to all of us equally. So have trust in yourself and the existence unconditionally.

Final Words

I myself used to take aid of “fate” and invent all kinds of excuses to conceal my fear of being a failure for a long time. It took me nowhere. I never found any peace and happiness in it. The day when I took off the garland of consolation from my neck, I felt an immense delight surging all through me. I felt as if I had regained my freedom.

How long are you going to fall into this fallacy of fate? It’s up to you to choose…

Let me conclude with one story:

Mr. X wasn’t doing very well in his business. He hadn’t been making any profits lately, and was sinking into debt gradually. As he was approaching his bankruptcy, he got very agitated and frustrated. One day he went off to the forest, knelt down, looked up to the sky, and said, “God, I have been religious all my life. I don’t smoke, drink, gamble, or commit adultery… I have been honest and have always lived by virtue and good values. Why – all this is happening to me? Why have you left me so miserable? Why is my business going downhill? Why God? Why? Why?... There was pause for a minute after his outcry. Breaking the silence, suddenly a thunderous voice (obviously of God) rumbles amidst the clouds, “…’coz you pissed me off.”

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