Who's driving?

There's a mystical element to life that is often difficult to grasp and nearly impossible to comprehend.

I'm not talking about ghosts or Voodoo. I'm referring to the potential "butterfly effect" of seemingly innocuous events, which can later reveal themselves as turning points and stepping stones. These "happenings" appear to some as random cosmic coincidence, and to others as predetermined fate, depending on interpretation.

If you know me well enough, you've probably heard me talk about this before. The coincidence/fate discussion is one of my favorites.

I think the choices you make end up defining you. But I'm not sure we're the ones writing the definitions.

If you examine the decisions that have brought you to your current state (from Point A to Point B), there is a good chance you had no idea what you were getting into when you were back at Point A.

In other words, most decisions are made blindly. Often, there is no way to assess the future ramifications of even trivial choices.

That's a somewhat unsettling thought. It means that ultimately, you are not in the driver's seat of your own car.

Or if you are driving, it's foggy and you can't see beyond 50 yards.

Do I have any concrete evidence to back this up? I do.

Exhibit A: choosing a university.
Do you go in state or out? Ivy League or Pac-10? Private or public?
When you decide where to go to school and what to study, it's impossible to tell where each path will lead. I picked Arizona State, but I would have loved to go to a school like UC-Berkeley. But who knows where that would have taken me? Maybe to my dream job at the Washington Post, or maybe just into debt with cumbersome student loans to pay for the $40,000/yr tuition.

Exhibit B: choosing a wife (or husband).
Ok, so I'm not married, and therefore not fully qualified to use this example. But in theory, picking a spouse is one of the most difficult decisions a person can make. And even if you find someone you think is perfect, or perfect for you, there is no telling where you'll end up. I'm not being pessimistic or negative. I'm just repeating a well known truism: Love is blind.

Exhibit C: deciding what to do tomorrow.
This is the scariest and most important example. It's something that comes at us everyday. Planning a schedule, being somewhere at a certain point in time. Go to the movies, or go to the bookstore? A seemingly harmless, insignificant choice, but, what if at the bookstore you meet your future spouse? What if at the movie theater you perform the heimlich on someone choking on popcorn? Anyone can identify these turning points, both big and small.

So what exactly is my point here?

Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

You'll never be able to completely control your life. Just make the best of what you've got.

Full speed ahead.