After sitting in a couple of my PHI 107 lectures, I've come to realize how unordinary, ordinary things are. Like, what are we? Why do we exist? Where do we come from? Is fate real? Did I eat that chili dog for a reason, impacting my future choices (further impacting the past in another dimension). It may sound crazy, but the craziest ideas in the past have ripened into things most people never could have imagined possible. Who would have thought we can fly to other countries in the sky? How could we possibly talk to someone two thousand miles away from us? Soon we're going to be able to grab food out of our television and eat it.
Who believes that everything happens for a reason, raise your hand (or share this article). A real question is, do we actually have free will? It's kind of like the domino effect. When one domino falls over, it knocks over another and so on. Now compare it to an event in your life, impacting future decisions. Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you had made one different decision? It probably would have been totally different, but could we have really made that other choice? Many people believe in destiny and predetermination. The choices made were supposed to be made. Predetermination could be compared to a road map. The directions to the final destination are all planned out for you. While maybe small decisions, like making a left or a right are possible, in the end, you always wind up back on the same road toward point B. U-turns really aren't possible. What is done is done. You only can move forward toward the future.
Of course, there are critics toward the argument. Many could argue that fate is merely a coping mechanism to get through rough times. I mean, why wouldn't we be able to choose what we want to do. My philosophy teacher had us question whether our choices really matter. Maybe the bagel we chose out of the three hundred choices in the dining hall for breakfast was for a reason. Who knows, right? Free will may seem a reality at its core, but if our path was set at birth, then do we really have a choice? Most definitely there have been times when you felt like something was more than just a coincidence. Maybe the concept of luck is just another word for what was supposed to happen to us. That can also go for the unfortunate events in our life. The experiences we have and memories we create, teach us lessons for future decisions, and prepare us for events further in life.
Having an open mind can really benefit you. Anything is possible, and while thinking about the deeper questions in life may not give you deeper answers, merely asking questions can turn ordinary things into something much more meaningful. The next time someone tells you to get up and make something happen, just tell them you're supposed to be right where you are (then get way more philosophical and confuse them).
