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Destiny's child

    I have never been one to believe in pure fate or destiny. A few blogs back I talked about the idiom: "everything happens for a reason." And without rehashing that particular saying up comes destiny. So, when a good friend asked me, "Are we destined to fate, or do we carve it." I can only truly and logically answer that we carve it. 
     All my life I have loved fairy tales. I believe in dragons of the old realm, fairies that live under the mushrooms, naiads and dryads that lure unsuspecting humans into their lair, trolls that control the bridges, knights that vanquish the monsters to protect their kingdom, kings that rule over their lands with gentle love...all of it. I love it. And when I say that I believe in it, I believe in the magic that makes these things real.
     Does this make me someone who is caught up in a world of fantastical beings unable to live in the reality of this world? No. Chesterton quotes, "Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed." This is the world I live in. I choose to believe in the magic and mysticism of fairy tales because I know that evil exists and it can be vanquished.
     But what does that have to do with destiny? Because as much as my heart and soul dance with the mystical, my logic knows, that in the end, I carve my own destiny. I cannot rely on the fate of the gods to move me across the board of life hoping that one day I will get what I want or achieve my ultimate goal. So, I can't believe that my destiny is simply fated. I can't believe this because even in the stories of King Arthur, he had to make the effort to choose to pull the sword from the stone.
     I can even take it biblically, and say that even Mary had to say yes to Christ. She actively made the choice to carry the Son of God in her womb for 9 months. Were they destined? That isn't the point. The point is that even in the end they had to make a choice. They carved out the destiny that they became. 
     We all have a destiny. But none of us can predict what it is. So when we begin to walk the path of our lives according to our own standards, ethics, or morals, we are choosing to carve out the destiny we achieve. That doesn't mean that things can't make that destiny change, and although the chances of that change are inevitable and high, we still have the control. We still can take the small detours we face in life and redirect ourselves toward the life we want even if there is an obstacle in the way. We all have the choice to choose to focus on what we can achieve and what we want out of this life. It is what makes us...us.
      In the end, dragons do exist, but I also make the choice to tame the dragon or to vanquish it...therefore changing my own destiny.

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