Destiny or Decisions?

[craigharper.com]

As an Exercise Scientist and Trainer I have spent much of the last twenty-five years helping people change their body. Smaller, bigger, lighter, leaner, more muscle, more flexibility, speed, power... Athletes, non-athletes, kids, mums, dads.....whatever they were after; that's what I did my best to deliver.

A while ago I met with a woman and her nineteen year-old daughter who (for many reasons) had a life which was, at worst, teetering on the brink of disaster, and at best, going nowhere fast.
The young woman had significant personal issues (as we all do from time to time) and so the mother made an appointment for the two of them to meet with me, to see if we could possibly come up with some type of strategy to turn things around.

No biggie.

"As long as she is genuinely ready to change and be honest and responsible, we'll have no problems", I told the mother on the phone before the meeting.

Don't turn up if she's not genuinely ready to do the things necessary to create forever change.

As I sat and spoke with the two of them, it became apparent that they were both of the opinion that she (the daughter) had ended up where she was by some stroke of bad luck, or some kind of cosmic retribution.

Apparently the universe was conspiring to make her life a misery.

Fate perhaps.

Crap... perhaps (I thought).

Poor baby.

Here's a snapshot of her situation:

Wealthy family.
Left school at sixteen to 'work' in the family business.
Hated work and rarely turned up.
Always too unwell to work.. but well enough to party.
Smoked dope every day.
Morbidly obese.
Parents who 'love' her, but facilitated her crap because there had never been any real consequences for her destructive, deceptive, selfish behaviour.

Mummy and Daddy always bailed her out.
(Parents who do this actually perpetuate the problem).

The mother informed me that her daughter had always had terrible luck with friends, relationships, school, teachers and with drugs!

How on earth does someone have terrible luck with drugs?

She then shared that she didn't "feel it was her daughter's destiny to live the life she was living."

I told mum that I didn't believe in the (mainstream) concept of destiny.

I told her that I believe it is the refuge of the indecisive, the lazy and the deluded.

I told her that destiny was a convenience for people who didn't want to take responsibility for what they make (or don't make) of their life.

She gave me the maternal death-stare.

I ploughed on relentlessly.
'She hates me anyway', I thought.

I turned to the daughter:

"I believe your life is a disaster largely because of the decisions you have and haven't made, and the things you have and haven't done."

It's about choices.
Simple.

"If you decide to do different, think different, react different, eat different, live different and communicate different.... you'll be different."

Better.
Leaner.
Lighter.
Healthier.
Excited.
Happy.
Fulfilled.
Content.

"But creating your best life has nothing to do with destiny... and everythig to do with decisions."

People sprinkle conversations with terms like destiny, fate, chance and luck, so they don't actually have to take responsiblity for their reality.

Historically, now or in the future.

If destiny is some pre-ordained series of events, circumstances, situations and experiences which are to 'happen to us' over the course of our lifetime, then we don't actually have to do anything.... because whatever will be, will be.

It's all beyond our control anyway.

Pathetic.

Sometimes we romanticise our existence here on the big green ball with fluffy, vague, feel-good, mumbo-jumbo philosophies.

And in doing so we:

Fail to deal with realities of the human experience.
Fail to scrape our knees and learn.
Fail to feel and experience all life has to offer.
Fail to be responsible for our own journey.
Fail to grow as we could and should.
Fail to live, laugh, love and learn.


Well the good news is.. after hating my guts for an hour or so, a little weeny light started to flicker somewhere way back in the darkest recesses of their respective heads...
And for maybe the first time, mother and daughter started to consider things from a new perspective and explore the 'what ifs'.

A year on (and a few chats later), junior is back studying, 30 kgs (66lbs) lighter, still hating me periodically (and occasionally loving me), drug-free and a completely different person.

Happy, even.

Because she decided to be.

[Fusebox]

Awesome awesome post. You have summed up perfectly what I have been wanting to say to a colleague of mine.

[stephencp]

Fusebox,
so what will it take for you to actually intervene and help your friend now that you know exactly how to say it?

Stephen
Power-Book Library: Free personal development, success, inspiration and motivational classics
TSTN | The Success Training Network

[AndyMartin]

Well said. I think it's a matter of whether we are living our life in the present moment. I believe it is our gift to act with volition and intention, and not be acted upon. Destiny is a future that doesn't exist, history is a past that exists only in memory; opportunity is now. Fate is writing the end of the story before the beginning and middle instead of living on the open page.

But this is not obvious to everybody. It is an understanding that is reached at higher levels of conscious development. Helping someone experience expansion of awareness and leading them to greater empowerment and responsibility is so much more valuable than any single life change. You must be grateful to have been a part of that.

That's very cool!