Destiny versus coincidences

Among many things and ideas spinning in my head in the last few weeks was the idea of fate versus coincidences. I do not believe in destiny as something that is written in advance somewhere (no one really knows where) and is going to happen as such; not for a moment, not at any level; individually; globally; to a country or football team or anyone else and, moreover, I do not believe in luck and superstitions mainly because they have no scientific proof and are contrary to reason and, secondly, because people who do believe in them do not inspire me, however (and now comes the positive part of this blog entry), I do believe in coincidences, most of which are simple or trivial and only a very few I like to call “specials”.

In both these cases, there is no force of nature behind them to make these incidents occur, they just happen because we are millions of people in the planet and, of course, our paths will frequently cross mostly indifferently but some others not so much so, this depends on the observer of such event (for example, if a tree falls in the middle of the most remote forest, does it make any noise? Well, it depends on someone being there to hear it or not).

I cannot believe, for example, that my life is written somewhere in advance, the mere idea of this would be so boring that it would be unbearable to live a life following the steps already set by an alleged higher power of destiny, even if we don’t know what the next step would be.
This completely underestimates the intelligence of people and sails against the idea that life is built step by step, minute by minute and, for better or for worse, we are all making decisions that take us one way or another, drifting away on the sea of life. There is no better journey than the other, in order to know that we would have to live all the lives and only then be able to compare which one is best, therefore, I believe that what we must focus on is in finding the best possible way for our own life.

Coincidences are basic structures of the road we take in life but, as well as a pile of bricks and mortar do not constitute a home, a list of random repetitions does not make one's life.
However, it is true that most of the coincidences in life will go unnoticed so not paying attention to them is like discarding old bricks that will not be part of a house.
Obviously, it is highly probable that sometimes the improbable will happen (see Murphy's law if you don’t believe me), but for most of life events estimating the probability of coincidences is extremely vague due to the difficulties in repeating the circumstances that led to those coincidences in the first place. For example, there was that person leaving home for work and on a certain day he met a woman at the bus stop to whom he fell in love with and, in time, formed a happy family with children, completely oblivious of the fact that on that very same morning that woman left her home later than usual because it was the first time she fell asleep since her alarm didn’t go off. That’s what I call a special coincidence, one of those events that will be key in our journey through life.

Life is nothing but something finite, we are born and we die and maybe the only way out of this finitude is through love. I believe that love is the opposite to death, love is present at the beginning and at the end of life; love prevails far beyond death in the remembrance and feelings of our loved ones or in the things we do that will transcend our lives.
Life and love are limits, but what are these limits exactly telling us? They are boundaries of the road; they also are protective enclosures; containers that act as referential frameworks in life
I do not see a limit as an end in itself but rather as a tool for achieving the best possible way to create that desired journey in our lives. As the Argentinian writer Jaime Barylko wrote in his magnificent book ‘The children and the limits’, “a road without speed limits or demarcation lines and lanes would be a total chaos which would hardly make a pleasant ride and perhaps impossible to reach any destination”.
When there are limits we are free to act and we can choose and even if we want to, we can leave the road as in order to get out of a place you need to first define that place.

The demarcations on the asphalt alone are not the road, the actual road is between them and so we can choose the pace; the direction; the speed; where to head to or come from; when and how and, if you want to stop moving, you just stand still! This is how we know what goes in or out of those limits and those limits are nothing more (and nothing less) than our personal values.
The challenge is building our road in life according to our values; taking precious time to pay close attention to those very few but very important special coincidences; hearing all the bells and especially following our hearts. There is a song from the Argentinian rock band La Renga that says that “the heart has reasons that reason itself will never understand” and then it goes on to say “wherever I go, I always go to seek what is mine, because the world ends in a circle and the end is where I departed".
That is our freedom and we have it because we have values. I personally look forward to continue traveling through my journey with my three angels; they make the ride ever more beautiful and worthy, with new challenges every day and renewed hope that love will always prevail.


Diego, July 2010