[quote=AN][quote=ocrenter]That is why so many people use “fate” and “god’s plans” to excuse themselves from having to pay attention and be aware and make the necessary modifications.[/quote]A lot of time, it is fate. There are many things in life that you can’t change even if you wanted to. Cancer, marrying the wrong/right person, genetic diseases, born with/without birth defects, being hit by a drunk driver, being born with high/low IQ, being born in a very rich/poor family, being born in the wrong/right country at the wrong/right time (i.e. being born in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge massacre and having 90% of your family executed and you survive because you just happen to be be out of town), etc. I think “fate” is “god’s plans” are way for people to explain/cope/make sense of/with things that are out of their control. I’m pretty sure if you’re born during the great depression era in the US or during the hyper inflation era in Germany, there’s really not much you can do but make lemonade out of lemons or suicide.[/quote]
Of course there are going to be the natural disasters and historic events where there will be zero options nor ability to foresee and change course. We could all go the way of the dinosaurs tomorrow and no one would be left to debate if they could have manipulated the cyclical events in their favor.
However, despite all of our genetic predisposition and socioeconomic tendencies we are all equipped with the ability make changes to that given fate on a regular basis. Most people do not. And that’s why marketing firms are able to make extremely accurate predictions of purchase behaviors while public health physicians can actually manipulate risky sexual behavior through offer of lotteries, but not steady payments.
My point is most people will settle into what their genetic predisposition and socioeconomic tendencies guide them toward. It is the default, it is what comes easiest. And while a select few will be able to go against the grain, the vast majority will not. And that vast majority will take perfectly fluid and malleable situations with multiple possibilities and outcomes and turn them into very predictable singular outcome scenario and blame such outcome on fate.
