I am deeply insecure. I want to know what’s mine is mine, that it can never be taken away from me. I want to believe what belongs to me or with me has been earmarked with my name on it in indelible ink. I want to believe things are fated, that they are going to happen no matter what.

I turned to my spiritual philosophy for answers and instead of feeling reassured, I feel even more insecure, so that’s awesome.

My spiritual teacher said, “The stars do not control you; your original actions control you. And where the original action is not known to you, but the result is known to you, the result is experienced by you, you say it is fate.”

This building didn’t just appear, it had to be built, like our fate.

In other words, for every action there is a reaction, and that reaction is often called fate. And the reaction may not be expressed in this lifetime so in that instance we’re even more likely to call it fate. He also said we think things are predestined but “destiny cannot be the absolute factor, for if you do not exist, if you do not act, destiny cannot exist either.”

Arg. This does not make me happy because again, insecure and anxious over here, but at the same time, I appreciate the stance because it means I have to show up for my life. It means I have to be an active participant in my life to manifest the things I wish to see. Furthermore, the reactions will come about, we do reap what we sow. We are not puppets with strings, dancing about according to the whims of a capricious entity. What we do, what we say, how we act matters – not only for the here and now, but for the future. Our destiny is our own creation.

Here is what I know, which also ties into my post from last week. I have to stay focused on the here and now. I have to keep putting in effort to achieve what I want – it’s not going to be handed to me on a silver platter, but other things will. And instead of thinking of those things as happy coincidences, it’s important for me to understand it’s perhaps as a result of past actions I took, actions I may not even be aware of. Furthermore, something else I know to be true, is the universe is working for our benefit. There are forces at work that want to see me succeed, that guide me, that steer me in the right direction, and it’s important to keep coming back to that. To keep coming back to center.

I guess what I’m saying here is I am not powerless. I am not off the hook for my life. At the moment, that terrifies me, but maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up feeling empowered because ultimately that’s what this philosophy about fate is seeking to do: to let me know my actions matter and to behave accordingly.

I dream of a world where we have a sense of our own agency. A world where we realize fate is the reaction to a previous action. A world where we keep showing up for our lives because we understand we mold our own fates so the present should be properly utilized for the future.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.