Do you believe in fate?

[🌠]

Maybe some of you will stop reading my post after reading the first sentence but life is like a visual novel. The routes we take in life depend on our decisions and thus, we create our own story. But in visual novels, every route is written depending on what the author wants and the characters in those visual novels wouldn't realise that they are just puppets.

What if such is the case in real life as well and we are being guided to experience certain things and meet certain people? I type this post because I have experienced too many coincidences to ignore them and I will share some of them.

I will start with a bit of personal info. If I spell my real name with latin letters, replace those letters with numbers depending on their place in the English alphabet, then add them, the total number would be 77. I live on the 7th floor. Even my entire birth date is related to the number 7 in a way. So I accepted that this is my guiding number.

Since my teenage years, my class of choice in RPGs is the mage or something equivalent. A few years ago, I discovered a mobile hero collector game. One of the characters in that game is an astrologist, also classified as a wizard. For some reason, the dev team decided to put the number 7 in the description of her abilities, like duration of 7 seconds, 7% healing, etc. Naturally, that hero caught my attention and decided to explore it further. Her lore says that according to her, everything happens for a reason. This is when I started giving it some serious thought. A fun fact is that as a kid, I also believed that I can read my friends' fates, using Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.

And now, some of the events that happened to me this year also strengthen my theory because I have experienced very similar things in a certain year, not too long ago. I will call it "year X". The things that happened to me between "year X" and the current year are also very similar to those that happened before "year X". It feels like history repeats itself after that year, which marks the end of the first "chapter". Maybe something needs to be changed and there is a lesson to be learned.

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason which we don't understand? Or maybe everything is a pure coincidence and nothing is real and meaningful outside our minds? If you believe that there is more than that, you can also share some of your experiences that make you think that way.

[Castyles]

No.

[OoOoOoooOOoOoorgle]

Narp.

People overthink how and why stuff happens in their lives. It's really easy, and I think to a certain extent natural, to want to ascribe it to some grandiose plan or pattern or even a really complex causality chain.


But most of the time the answer for why something happens any certain way is "it just did." As humans we simply don't like to believe that things are truly this chaotic.

[Xero_Daxter]

I don’t like the idea that I don’t have control of my life.

[ṼṏẌṏḭḊ]

Nope.

Things just happen.

[Walach]

I'm always confused by those things you explained. For me it's like this: If you want to find patterns, then you'll find patterns. Why did you pick that game, that number, that character, that word? And not any of the other?

If there isn't a strict system to it, then I could explain those patterns like "I just thought about the number 1, and number 1 is the only (1) number that is 1 so that's why I'm (1) going to go to the moon (1). You (1) know, because Earth (1) only (1) has 1 moon. And why go to the moon (1) in the FIRST (1) place? Well that's because you (1) have to go somewhere to be somewhere and everyone knows you (1) can ONLY (1) be at one (1) place at one (1) time! (1). And now the best part! If we add all those numbers together, and then add some more, we get, not only my age, but also my birth and everything in-between!"

But on to your actual question. My answer is: Yes, and no. Yes because there is always a reason for somethign when it happen. And no because no one uses that sort of logic when they think about "fate" when speaking informally. :P

[Jonathan Sensei]

It depends on what you define as "fate".

My family have a saying: "things happen in threes". Doesn't matter if it's good or bad, it always happens in threes. And from life experience, I'm convinced of that saying. I also like to think that at the end of the day, my end has already been pre-determined. Of course that isn't to say I can't decide how I get there, but, all roads end at the same point. Hopefully it isn't too bad, but that's not for me to decide.

[Ice Robertson]

Well i kinda believe in reincarnation but fate would be real if you don't come back as yourself.

All my choices are just because of the kind of guy i am, But given a second chance at those choices, Some of them i wouldn't do again.

[Phirestar]

My life experiences seem to indicate, at least in my eyes, that it may be a possibility. So yes, I'm inclined to believe in the idea of fate.

Messaggio originale di Jonathan:

It depends on what you define as "fate".

My family have a saying: "things happen in threes". Doesn't matter if it's good or bad, it always happens in threes. And from life experience, I'm convinced of that saying. I also like to think that at the end of the day, my end has already been pre-determined. Of course that isn't to say I can't decide how I get there, but, all roads end at the same point. Hopefully it isn't too bad, but that's not for me to decide.

My mom has said that same thing thoughout my life, as well. It's one that I've actually been thinking about myself lately, in relation to... something in my near future, let's just say. I would definitely feel comforted in knowing that things will turn out that way.

[Jonathan Sensei]

Messaggio originale di Phirestar:

Messaggio originale di Jonathan:

It depends on what you define as "fate".

My family have a saying: "things happen in threes". Doesn't matter if it's good or bad, it always happens in threes. And from life experience, I'm convinced of that saying. I also like to think that at the end of the day, my end has already been pre-determined. Of course that isn't to say I can't decide how I get there, but, all roads end at the same point. Hopefully it isn't too bad, but that's not for me to decide.

My mom has said that same thing thoughout my life, as well. It's one that I've actually been thinking about myself lately, in relation to... something in my near future, let's just say. I would definitely feel comforted in knowing that things will turn out that way.

Do the best you can and be the best you that you can be. Everything else'll work itself out. That's another personal anecdote about fate I believe in. If life throws me a curve ball, it already gave me the bat to hit it flying away. Just a matter of me knowing when to swing it.

[L1qu1dator]

Not in the romanticized version of fate.

[Phirestar]

Messaggio originale di Jonathan:

Messaggio originale di Phirestar:

My mom has said that same thing thoughout my life, as well. It's one that I've actually been thinking about myself lately, in relation to... something in my near future, let's just say. I would definitely feel comforted in knowing that things will turn out that way.

Do the best you can and be the best you that you can be. Everything else'll work itself out. That's another personal anecdote about fate I believe in. If life throws me a curve ball, it already gave me the bat to hit it flying away. Just a matter of me knowing when to swing it.

I don't know if that even is necessarily fate-related. I think that is just good life advice in general, frankly.

[Kobs]

It's easy to say no but when you went to work the same way for years and one day you decide you're going to take another way just because, and you get a friggin accident... it's like hitting a wall and you tell yourself why TF did I do this this morning, what are thhe chances of me going that way at the same time this guy forgot to brake at his stop sign... you just start to ask yourself a lot of questions.
Same with someone who never bought a lottery ticket his whole life and today at the corner store he goes "gimme a power ball" and wins the friggin jack pot... Chance? nah!

[OoOoOoooOOoOoorgle]

Messaggio originale di Kobs:

It's easy to say no but when you went to work the same way for years and one day you decide you're going to take another way just because, and you get a friggin accident... it's like hitting a wall and you tell yourself why TF did I do this this morning, what are thhe chances of me going that way at the same time this guy forgot to brake at his stop sign... you just start to ask yourself a lot of questions.
Same with someone who never bought a lottery ticket his whole life and today at the corner store he goes "gimme a power ball" and wins the friggin jack pot... Chance? nah!

Those are both perfect examples of chance, though. As observers who can't conceptualize what it's like to be a non-observer, it's really hard for humans to grasp how probability operates independently in every single instance.

Probabilistic events functionally cannot be connected to past or future iterations. Nothing probabilistic is capable of accumulation. If they were, every probability would eventually cascade to 0% or 100%, rendering systematic probability nonfunctional and moot. Since this doesn't happen, we can know that they are always independent.

The perceived 'coincidence' is our own fallacy, but an understandable one, because observers can only understand things via their individual frame of reference.

[GlaceonChireiden]

No. The road you end up as is dictated by your own choices, there is no railroad dragging you along to prompt you to "choose the right path".

You *want* to believe you're destined to this. You want to believe there is some greater power forcing your choices. You refuse to accept things happen because you just aren't perfect.

Fate is a poor man's coping mechanism.

[Ice Robertson]

Messaggio originale di OoOoOoooOOoOoorgle:

The perceived 'coincidence' is our own fallacy, but an understandable one, because observers can only understand things via their individual frame of reference.

Your post is quite complicated to me but i understand other people are the way they are and will always do same choices unless given the same choice again with better knowledge.

Or at least that's the way i see things.

Sorry I'm too simple.