Choosing Destiny: Why We Prefer Fate Over Freedom

A reminder that I will be hosting ‘The Purpose Clinic’ online next Wednesday 22nd May 7pm Dublin / 2pm EST/ 11am PST.

The focus of the clinic will be Purpose & Identity.

You can read more or register for the call via this post: Introducing 'The Purpose Clinic'

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In a recent episode of his podcast, the mythologist Michael Meade explored the relationship between destiny and fate. Fate, in his view, is not predetermined but a reflection of our ‘inner oracle needing interpretation’. To help with this interpretation of our life map, fate offers up people, challenges, and obstacles to test us and push us past our inner limitations. If we accept this process, we are provided with the clues needed to unlock and live out our destiny, to transform in the way our soul desires. This tension between fate (the reality of life in front of you) and destiny (who you could become) is necessary. As Michael notes: ‘Whenever we brush up against the limits of our fate, we are also standing near the door of our destiny’. 

This idea of developing a positive relationship with the challenges and struggle of life is not just key to unlocking your destiny, it is a fundamental element of living a purposeful life. Purpose is often revealed to us most when we are challenged. Learning to be in relationship with our struggles is part of developing greater purpose in life. In existential positive psychology, we refer to this as attitudinal values; the ability to adopt a more positive attitude to negative events beyond our control.

Many dream about being released from the limitations of life. More freedom is a fantasy most people have. Who hasn’t thought of winning the lottery and sailing off into the sunset away from the constraints of life, your annoying boss, co-worker, or family member? I regularly do. In this fantasy, we believe with total freedom life would be perfect. Freedom would mean no commitments, no uncomfortable conversations, and no stress.

It would also mean nothing to care about.

I have had tasters of freedom in my life, taking sabbaticals at different points. Last time, I gave myself almost total freedom, leaving my career, where I lived and parts of my identity. In theory, I had no commitments or worries for a year. But total freedom creates a void in which there is no solid ground to touch. Nothing to tether your sense of identity to. While it was liberating for a time it was also, in moments, anxiety-inducing (I wrote about this before: Becoming A Bigger Person.)

The biggest discovery of that year was I need much more in life than freedom can offer.

No purpose can be found in total freedom. We need life to be meaningful. Purpose asks us to choose things, to choose how we want to be in the world. It helps us understand what we are invested in enough – a job, a calling, community, a person or people - that we feel they are worth sacrificing some freedom for. If we want to live a purposeful life we must accept the stakes will be higher. We have to care enough about what holds purpose for us to bear the cost or forgo the freedom it will demand.

In truth, I don’t believe we really want more freedom. What we want is more safety. We want to feel safe enough to make different choices in life that align more fully with who we are. We feel if we create the conditions in which we feel safer (often financial freedom) we would make different decisions or live the life we really want. We want to be free from the uncertainty that choosing differently will bring. There is no doubt money makes life easier but it doesn’t always provide freedom. Even those who have achieved some level of financial certainty tell me decisions and choices remain just as difficult. The very human fears of being exposed, vulnerable or of failing haven’t gone away. It turns out freedom wasn’t the key to living differently after all. Accepting that life is full of uncertainty was.

Sometimes unseen forces are gently nudging life along by presenting you with dead ends, failures, and unforeseen changes. These challenges are prompting you to change direction in life or develop and grow. When we try to tone down risk in life, we tone down the opportunity for life to re-direct us. We prevent fate from opening the doors of destiny.

Learning to trust life more has been a big shift for me in the last ten years. Today, I expect things may not always go as planned but I trust life is always leading me somewhere. I don’t have to be in full control of everything because life has a bigger plan for me than I can ever have for myself. I can trust myself to deal with whatever arrives because, if it has turned up in my life, fate has placed it there. Growing this ability to hold and sit with uncertainty has given me a greater sense of freedom than any amount of money could.

The etymology of the word ‘destiny’ comes from the Latin ‘to make firm or establish’. To make firm is the opposite of freedom. It is to commit. After my last sabbatical, a friend of mine, a psychotherapist, asked me ‘so what are you committing to now?’ It was such an intentional question and has stayed with me ever since. Armed with the idea that constraints can be good, I have become much more intentional about the choices and decisions I make in life. The reality is I am always free. I am free to choose.

Rather than denying the limitations that life inevitably has, actively choosing constraints has helped me curate my life and work in the way I really want. In each choice, I am asking myself ; What am I choosing here? What am committing to? What will life look like if I do this? Who could I become because of this? If struggle and uncertainty are guaranteed in life, then ensuring joy also matters. If your job, your role, your relationships, are not balancing constraint and challenge with the rewards of joy and purpose, chances are fate may be nudging you to make a different choice in some area of your life. Choices, if well made, lead to freedom.