It’s your destiny
By Renae Bottom, Columnist
I sometimes worry that I’ve missed my destiny.
Robert Frost tried to warn me in a poem, but what if those two famous roads diverged in a yellow wood and I—I took the wrong one?
Maybe my destiny came knocking when I was in college, or high school, or kindergarten, and I failed to open the door, so now there’s an alternate version of me somewhere in the multiverse, living what could have been my best life. If so, I wish that woman well. And I hope she’s paying my bills.
As for the version of me that I wake up with every morning, she’s elbow-deep in the daily grind and generally disenchanted with the culture of destiny.
Though the concept does make a handy story arc for romantic comedies. They usually unfold something like this. Main character stands in traffic and shouts: “It’s you! You’re my soulmate, my one true destiny, my eternal ‘You had me at hello!’”
Main character then: 1) races to the airport to stop soulmate from leaving forever; 2) races to the bus depot, the train station, or the Love Boat departure dock to stop soulmate from leaving forever; 3) races to the wedding venue, to burst in and declare undying love, just before “I do’s” are said and soulmate is—lost forever.
Makes you wonder why nobody picks up a cell phone.
I enjoy a romantic comedy as much as the next person in my multiverse, but does destiny really reveal itself in a single, overwhelming burst of clarity at a single point in time? I suppose it happens. Maybe sometimes, in a nanosecond, the lightning-bolt zaps us with the clear mandate: This is the person for you, the job for you, the place for you, the parking spot three spaces closer to the front door for you.
But as graduation season winds down and I hear myself asking high school seniors, “What are your plans? What do you want to do with your life?” I feel a little guilty for presuming they should have an answer. A few of them do; most of them don’t.
That’s OK. Maybe there won’t be a lightning bolt. Destiny is nimble enough to reveal itself in quieter ways. Maybe, after a host of course corrections and seeming disappointments, they’ll discover that duty, rather than glitter-spewing magic, is what called them to a person, a job, or a location, and they’ll quietly recognize that destiny has more than one name.
Because if destiny were a one and done, I’d be road kill. I’m not that attuned to metaphysical messages. The winds of destiny might waft my way and I’d be focused on Cheetos. Or paper towels. Or standing mesmerized in the shampoo aisle at Walmart.
And there you go. Destiny moment ended, my life forever fated to be less than it could have been if only I’d paid better attention, rather than worrying about whether I had enough dental floss to make it through the weekend.
Thank goodness that a life of trial and error, with more “error” than I’d care to admit, has resulted in a life rich with satisfaction, even in the midst of sorrow and frustration.
Let’s admit it—we aren’t the most qualified to judge the fate-fulfillment arc of our own lives. What we are equipped to do is make the best decisions we can, then glean the maximum possible goodness from the consequences.
So don’t give in to destiny anxiety. Opportunities to fulfill our destiny abound. They are, like certain mercies, new every morning.