I remember a friend once told me that life is a combination of accidents that just happen. She explained that everyone is just going about life, getting themselves into situations and building off of the last experience they walked into. She told me that life is accidental, people are accidental, and it doesn’t matter how much they plan and prepare. In the broader scheme of things, no one in life really has any clue what they’re doing.

Now, I believe it is general knowledge that I am a control freak. When I think about the prospect of having no actual control or command over my life, my hands get sweaty and my heart beats faster than it should ever need to. I have always been a firm believer in a higher command. The thought of a cosmic justice that balances every action I take and those that are not directly under my control calms me. I also know I am naïve. I have learned the hard ways that there are many things that just happen. There are things that I cannot control.

My friend's words spoke to a part of me that doubts that there is such a thing as fate or Kismet. Some part of me thinks that this belonging is simply a wish that one projects onto a hapless world. It's scary to think that the universe, in its vast starry expanse, does not care about me or know I exist. Some part of me believes that the universe only knows its own vastness. I cannot complain, however, when I myself can be that way.

How can I be afraid of the selfishness of the universe when I, whether I'm adjusting my glasses or sipping my afternoon tea, know nothing of the mitochondria that move within me? I go about the world with a complex system of cells that, in their ignorance of me, give me life. I go about the world creating abrupt changes for smaller universes- and maybe life has no plan. Often times these cosmic justices convince us that there is order and justice, convince us that everything is meant to fit, and convince us that no pieces will go missing.

These cosmic justices make us believe that the plot of our lives will fall perfectly along a beautifully drawn arc. The truth is that the invisible world will go on spinning regardless of my belief in it. Despite how small and insubstantial we may feel, we have some sway. I guess we just have to be prepared. Or not.