Sometimes I question the events in my life: were they acts of self-awareness or expressions of fate?
Take, for example, when I interviewed for my last job. Was I just running from the life I had—or was it fate (or a Higher Power) that opened the door to a new career, a new home, and ultimately, a new life? Was it part of a divine plan that led me to recovery and the grace I live in today?
Some say I was lucky. Others say self-will made the difference.
But back then, I believed some people were simply meant to drink themselves to death—that fate had already cast its vote, and mine wasn’t in my favor.
Carl Jung once said:
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
That quote haunted me because it rang true. I lived as though the script had been written, and all I could do was stumble through it. But something changed.
I began to see a different possibility.
Viktor Frankl said:
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
That space—however small—was my lifeline. My Higher Power offered me a choice. Not a demand. Not an ultimatum. A choice.
And in that choice, something remarkable happened. I found a path. Or maybe the path found me.
I was guided to a new city, surrounded by new people, and offered a new way of living. It didn’t come easy, and it didn’t come without pain. But as Richard Rohr wisely said:
"Transformation is often found not in the avoidance of suffering, but in the deeper meaning we give to it."
Recovery gave me the time and space to stand still long enough for grace to catch up with me. I found a fellowship that surrounded me with safety and purpose. I found the whisper of God that said, “You are not alone.”
Today, I know there’s a plan. I no longer believe I’m just being tossed by the winds of fate.
As Paul reminds us in Romans 8:28:
“All things work together for good to them that love God…”
And as the AA Big Book says,
“We are willing to grow along spiritual lines.”
That willingness has made all the difference. What I once saw as fate, I now see as providence—and partnership.
“I thought I had to fight fate alone. But I wasn’t alone. I never was.”
I no longer ask what fate holds.
I ask:
What can I give? What truth can I carry?
And I walk forward—free.
📜 Axioms That Ground My Daily Life
"One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying."
— Joan of Arc
"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."
— Marcus Aurelius
"Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resists."
— Plutarch
"To me, this means a belief in a Creator who is all power, justice, and love; a God who intends for me a purpose, a meaning, and a destiny to grow."
— Bill Wilson, As Bill Sees It
"Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh... they are free to choose liberty and eternal life... or to choose captivity and death."
— 2 Nephi 2:27, Book of Mormon
🌿 Final Thought
I used to think fate was a prison sentence.
Now I see it as the beginning of a relationship—with God, with others, and with the person I was meant to become.
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”
— Matthew 6:34
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