Friday, October 16, 2015

Finding Your Destiny in Randomness

The first gulp of the glass makes you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you. (Werner Heisenberg)

Some of you might know Nassim Taleb's book "Fooled by Randomness" which claims that many patterns that we claim to perceive are in fact random, and if we are just patient enough to wait, this randomness will be eventually revealed.

This note doesn't necessarily disagree with Taleb's premise that many of life's events could be classified as random by a statistician, but I would claim that the underlying story line is a very different one. Buried in that apparently random outcome is a divine story - your story!

The reason why the outcome has to appear random at the outset is the fact that the destiny of this story is entirely of your making. Rise or fall, love or hate, victory or defeat, this is your story and the meaning you give to life's events. 

While it is certainly naive to say that everyone can become a Michael Jordan if only you believe it enough. What is true instead is that there is your "dharma" - your mission - and divinity is yours to claim if you discover it and go after it. But to get there you may have to have have MJ's will power from time to time to simply override "random" events that don't fit your story line.

If this all sounds a little overwhelming, it is actually not that hard to do as long as you proceed one step at a time. Start telling your destined story to everyone who wants to hear it. Have a look at the evidence that is presenting itself. Use the so-called "random" events as stepping stones to make your story come true. Accept set-backs graciously, re-edit your story if you must, but keep looking for this event that will present themselves to make your story come true. Do not fear apparent randomness, be guided by it.

No comments: