Change Your Thinking by Maryellen Smith #Trust30 (Post 45)

“If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

At any given point in time, you’re only one thought away from changing your thinking. What thought can you change today?

(Author: Maryellen Smith)

Why is it that when I ‘Google’ this quote, it is attributed to “Amy Tan”?

Fate…what exactly is your definition of fate? 

What definition did Mr. Emerson or Amy Tan have in mind when ‘they’ wrote these words?  Do you believe it is some named or unnamed “force predetermining events” (Encarta Dictionary: English).  Like with all things that are not actually a science, but instead a faith, a belief, a truth, an educated guess, there are many ways to view this concept of fate.  I deeply respect all views and by writing my beliefs, in no way am I trying to negate yours.

Ultimately, we all have the same fate.  We all die.  Our time on this earth is limited and what happens to us after is truly a mystery.  Please do not misunderstand the point I am trying to make…I believe in something more, something Higher. But in my humanness, I feel that I cannot define it.

However, I will start with this quote:

“Fate makes our relatives, choice makes our friends.”

(Jacques Delille) 

While we may have been fated to be born into this world, what we do while we are alive is our choice.  No, we do not have much control over what happens to us.  But we do have total control over our attitude, how we react, and how we live this life we were ‘given’.

Why should we so carelessly attribute what happens to us as human beings…to our lives, to the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat to fate.  Are we afraid to accept responsibility?  Are we too lazy to ‘do the work’?  Are we not willing to take control of our ‘fate’?

These are the questions I have lived for many years now.  I wanted to blame my past, my abusers, my choice-less choices for the path I was on…if I took responsibility for my pain, my depression, my anger, my fear, my lack of faith, what exactly would that mean.  If I was responsible and did not like what was happening…

I WOULD HAVE TO CHANGE!  I would have to choose another path.

Who in their right mind would want to descend into the unknown? 

What I did not realize was that I was already traveling in the ‘unknown’.  I was living in the illusion of familiarity, when in reality, every moment and every breath is always unfamiliar, unknown.  But, it was not until I lost the illusion, until I consciously descended into the ‘unknown’ that I started to become an individual.  I was finally born out of the fate that was originally given to me.  It was in this darkness that I became aware of my true Self.  It was here, from the bottom of a deep well that I started to rise up, to choose, to create, to LIVE. 

It is not a perfect world.  Sometimes, I still fall into darkness.  But, with the thought of my new awareness so illuminating, I am not as fearful as I was before to continue my creation; to continue on my life-long journey to the Self.

This is the fate I choose.

Not this:

Peace, Nico