serendipity ∙ jjk

prologue.

Everything fell into place. Nothing was forced. It just... happened.

—

You've never been the one to believe in fate.

Fate. Destiny. Predetermination. All such things and all that they stand for as mere excuses for why things don't work out the way you want them to or how something came to pass the way it did. Sure, there are coincidences, even chance. But to equate everything that happens in the world to what a nonexistent higher deity deems worthy to the story of your life sounds pretty far-fetched. Meeting people, getting a job, losing people... those are all the highs and lows of life that can't just be simplified to just what someone up there in the universe says it should be. After all, there is a choice to all of these things.

There is always a choice. You choose to open yourself up to others. You choose to accept a job. You even choose to lose people, sometimes by your own prerogative and sometimes theirs. Life matters get in the way. Family issues arise, school gets busy, and personal issues can rear their ugly heads in this time, but that's life. Shit happens. The best thing you can do to alleviate the pain of loss and suffering is to, well, change what you can in your situation. And, in any case, this has been your foolproof plan to getting any outcome that you want.

While you can't foresee the future or even predict what will happen next, you know better than to just sit there and take what's coming. When a shitstorm is near, you know when to buckle down and get to work. You know that no matter how tough it is, you can work through it. It's not easy by any means, probably the hardest thing to do in these scenarios is starting to make the adjustments. But it's worth it every single time.

Perhaps you just can't believe in fate and destiny and all that other bullshit that philosophy has had to offer you in that one quarter-long Intro class that left you more frustrated than enlightened by the end of it. Perhaps what you believe works best is working hard. Effort. Strategic planning. Resilience. Those sorts of things get you through everything. That's how life works. Not by Fate's grand design. By one's own prerogative.

At least until recently.