fates be damned

I've come to a realization this week: I have more power than I ever realized. It's very liberating.

So I think I've lived my whole life believing there was some driving force, either divine or otherwise, making things happen, and that my duty was simply to react. In theory, I would never have admitted to it. I would have said that our lives are what we make of them. I'm only now coming to realize that my theory and my action are two different things.

I believe God is involved in my life. I believe He has a course for me, a plan, a purpose. I believe He cares. But apparently I've also been expecting Him to do all the work. I pray to know what is right, ask for help following His will, then just assume whatever happens is what should happen and I should accept it. If something doesn't work out-God's got other plans for me.
Well that's silly. I apply to schools, half-heartedly attempting to get in, and figure if I do its a miracle and must be what God wants; if I don't-it wasn't right for me. Same with jobs I've applied for. I've wanted to do His will and be led so much that I've failed to come up with my own will. I'm waiting for Him to tell me what profession I should go into, what graduate program I should do. He's probably waiting for me to find out what I want, cause it doesn't really matter. Just that He'll help me with whatever it is.

Sometimes its easier to wait for the Lord to tell you what to do. But there are also things I know I want, things I think I would do anything to have, but if it doesn't appear to work out, rather than fight for it I give up, because apparently it wasn't in God's plan for me. In reality, its easier to give up and "submit" then to try at something I could potentially fail at.

I've lived this way for so long, copping out anytime something is hard and tying it into the already twisted knot of faith I'm trying to unravel and make sense of. But this is not faith; this is fate. Leaving things to fate to take care of, because I don't want to risk the possible failure. Is much easier to blame my failures on fate. That's how I've lived; that's what I've thought.

Until now. Until a couple of nights ago, when I lay wallowing in a ridiculous but very real agony, despairing at how I just didn't have a fair chance, how I just wish I could know, regretting my passivity but dooming myself to repeat it. Then the epiphany, the shift in perspective that brought so much power and hope. Fates be damned-I am in control! I have the power to fight for what I want; I have the power to know what I want. If I try and fail, at least I tried! At least I don't have to live with the regret, the endlessly repeating cycles of "if only," and "would haves" Its not for me to wait and see what happens, to hope for coincidences to tell me where to go, what to do, what to hope for and fight for and believe in. I decide, and then I make it happen. That's how you live without regrets, right? To try, to move, to yearn, to give everything you've got. I'm a Switzer, and I go after what I want.