Fate Is Real. Here’s We Overcome It.

The Power of Rolling Like a Cone Instead of a Cylinder.

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Your beloved family member dies in a car crash — A tragedy, everyone assures you. But was it fated? That's a loaded term, so let's clarify. I'm not asking if a bearded sky god willed the accident, or if the event was somehow etched in cosmic stone at the beginning of time. But might be fated nonetheless?

Maybe your family member was killed by a woman driving a pickup truck. She was crying and distraught at the time of the accident, and simply missed the red light through her tears and sobs. But why was she upset? She'd just had a horrible fight with her husband, who was cruel and abusive.

Why did that man mistreat his wife, who he'd sworn to cherish and protect? Daily beatings by your father have a way of turning a man sour. And why was his father abusive? Because he had PTSD from fighting in a war, and he took out his rage on his son.

And so if we had a time machine and were determined to prevent our loved one's death by finding the root cause and stomping it out, we'd keep traveling further into the past, looking for the beginning of the matter, the place where we could intervene and preempt the madness.

Back and back we'd go. There's a father giving an inheritance to one son while excluding another. There's a stone-age man bitten by a malaria-laden mosquito while watching over his family, who depends on him for sustenance. 

Maybe at some point you’d arrive back at the Big Bang, or a creator god spinning the cosmos into motion.

Either way, we begin to see how much our lives are influenced by causal chains stretching into an unknowable past, bearing down on us like tsunamis.

Sometimes these waves of causality crash upon the shores-that-are-us with finality, taking our lives or torpedoing our businesses. Other times they carry us to fame and fortune. More frequently, they merely flood our region, ensuring we're born in a prosperous country where we can earn a good living, or a poor one where we'll scramble to survive while our children go blind from Vitamin A deficiency.

But some of you are surely now objecting that I’m ignoring something critically important — free will. A man might have PTSD and anger problems without beating his son. The woman shaken by a fight with her husband could pull over and collect herself before driving on. Those born in poor countries can emigrate and seek better lives. 

How can fate be real if we have so much power to alter it?

I’d like to make the case that fate is real and suggest that believing in it can make us more resilient and compassionate people. I also hope to convince you that the seeming contradiction between fate — also known as determinism — and free will isn’t really the hang-up it might seem. 

What Life Taught Me About Fate

I once believed in fate without realizing it. 

I was obese and had what would one day be diagnosed as colitis, an autoimmune disease where my body attacks my colon. I was also a poor student with little self-esteem. By and large, these problems appeared outside my control. Life seemed more like something that happened to me than something I lived. The results were what you’d expect — I felt disempowered and a victim of forces outside my control, and was frequently depressed.

In psychological terms, I had a strong external locus of control. Research shows that external locusts of control are associated not only with feelings of disempowerment and depression, but also maladaptive coping strategies like alcohol and drug use, emotional withdrawal, and other distractions that keep people from addressing stressful situations in a constructive way. 

On the other hand, those with internal locusts of control, who believe their fate primarily rests in their own hands, are both psychologically healthier and more prone to helpful coping strategies in the face of stressors. 

Enter Marcus Aurelius

But more than 20 years ago I read Meditations, a journal written by a long-dead Roman emperor named Marcus Aurelius. I hated it. Perhaps in part because Marcus ascribes so much to character and the personal choices totally within one's control, the book grated on me. I didn’t buy Marcus’s view, as It seemed the opposite of how I’d observed the world working. I thought forces outside ones control were the most important.

Yet I also couldn’t get Marcus out of my head. Repeated readings of Meditations and other life lessons over the next few years conspired to help me see that I had more power than I’d assumed, and personal choices did make a huge impact on my lived experience — even to my autoimmune disease, which doctors assured me I couldn’t influence with my actions.

By the time I was in my early 20s my colitis was in remission without drugs, I’d lost more than 40 pounds, and I’d gotten through college with good grades. Fate didn’t hand me a reprieve — I took action that overcame or ameliorated my problems. More important, I shifted my mindset, which allowed me to see myself as in control of the only things that do matter — how I respond to what happens to me. The later is actually what matter, as some circumstances will never be changed. 

Fate vs Free Will

You’re probably thinking this sounds like an argument against fate, not for it. If a belief in free will and internal locusts of control lead to better mental health and coping strategies, why believe in fate and external locusts of control? And what about free will? Doesn’t that trump the idea of fate?

These debates have been going on since antiquity, and will probably never be settled. Yet the ancient Greek and Roman Stoics found a way to believe in fate and free will that gave them psychological advantages. 

There are probably few better ways to examine how it worked than starting off with Greek myth.

You remember Achilles, right? The story goes that he was fated to win eternal glory and renown but die young. He ends up shot through the heel at the gates of Troy, a wound that kills him. Case closed, right? Fate wins. 

Or did it? If you actually read the story, you’ll see that it wasn’t quite so cut and dried. 

Achilles was given a choice. He could enjoy a long and happy life in obscurity, or go to war and achieve eternal glory but die young.  Achilles chose the later, and things played out as predicted. It was Achilles’s character, more than anything else, that ultimately doomed him to an early death.

Numerous Greek plays and myths show fate acting in this way — it brings us to an inflection point, and from there, character determines how things turn out. 

This lines up with how the Stoics thought these things worked. 

The Stoic view, as described by Cicero, was that everything that happens has a cause that leads to an effect. Every event is part of a chain of causality and that began at the beginning of time. But Stoics also insist that even in a deterministic world, our response is are ultimately up to us. We are not just helpless cogs in a machine, turned by the gears that grind down on us.

Are You a Cone or a Cylinder?

Isn’t this a contradiction?

Not according to the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, who said, “If you push a cylinder and a cone, the former will roll in a straight line, and the latter in a circle.”

This is analogous to the same outside forces or chains of causality causing remarkably different outcomes when they hit different people with different internal states and mindsets. 

The Stoics maintain that while events are largely outside our control, we have total control over our internal dispositions and our response to whatever happens.  

Some will lose their job and say, “What a tragedy!” and others will say, “What an opportunity!” and their lives may head off in radically different directions as a result. 

Don’t Get Dragged

So how does the interaction between fate and free will play out? The Stoics had a great analogy. 

Fate and free interact with us like a dog tied to a cart heading down a long road ending in death. Sometimes, fate gives us a long leash, and we can roam far before we run out of slack. At other times, the leash is short, and we need to stay far closer to the cart. But either way, if we plant your heels and try to resist the cart, sooner or late we’re going to be dragged.  

In my case, I’ve got a very short leash when it comes to numerous parts of my life. If I want to stay free of colitis flare-ups, there are a lot of foods I can’t eat which most people can enjoy with impunity. I also need to fast when my digestive system acts up. Similarly, I’ve managed to maintain my weight loss largely by eating far better than the average person. I’m prone to overeating, so I need to take steps to stop myself from doing it. I’ve also learned that I have a horrible memory, and I only became a good student when I found alternative ways to remember things so I could score well on tests. To this day, I learn new skills and facts far more slowly than others. But because I pivoted away from fatalism in my youth, I now seek out ways to adapt and overcome these and other weaknesses, and I often succeed. 

Yes, fate throws punches at us. Some of them cannot be dodged or helped. But when they land, there’s always an inflection point where we can pause and make a decision. We get to decide if we’ll let fate carry us along and give in to our past and conditioning, or if we’ll break the cycle and take a new path forward. Sometimes, success only differs from failure to the extent that fate’s blows don’t break us. Survival and a healthy optimism that things will be alright is sometimes an incredible accomplishment. 

The truism that the best predictor of future behavior is our past behavior is accurate in most situations. People tend to keep responding how they’ve responded in the past. But past behavior doesn’t render us helpless — it’s just a lot of weight to push against. One of the ways we can do it is by changing how we conceive of outside events.  

Three Views on Fate and the One That Works

Psychological research shows there are at least three different perspectives on fate. 

I described the fatalistic, or deterministic side previously, which leads to avoidant coping, disempowerment, and depression. 

But it’s polar opposite — believing everything is up t us, can also be problematic. Some people take responsibility for horrible things that happen to them, or for the destructive behavior of parents and spouses. Blaming yourself for having been unloved, neglected, betrayed, abused, or abandoned during childhood leads to predictably bad psychological outcomes. 

In contrast to the fatalistic assumption that peoples’ life outcomes are fixed and pre-determined, and the free will perspective of total control, what researchers refer to as “negotiating with fate,” suggests a better alternative in line with Stoic thinking. 

The idea of negotiating with fate is that we shape their outcomes through our response to what fate throws at us. How we exercise agency within the boundaries of our constraints determines our life’s course. 

This nuanced perspective can result in relief. If you’re applying for a job or to a college and get rejected, you can focus on the fact that you put your all into the application and the interview, which are the only parts up to you. You can be satisfied that you did as well as you could, given the constraints of fate. Ultimately, what’s out of your control isn’t worth worrying about. Only what you do matters. 

“Thus,” one group of researchers noted, “when faced with constraints, acknowledging fate does not necessarily lead people to believe that their actions are irrelevant. Instead, when individuals face constraining circumstances in which potential courses of actions are clearly limited, they are more likely to believe that they are able to negotiate with fate, and this belief can help them move forward from negative outcomes.”

So yes, that father could have negotiated with fate and found other ways to deal with his PTSD and anger issues and spared his innocent son. The wife could have pulled over and avoided the accident that killed our hypothetical family member. How we act is ultimately up to us. 

Fate and Sympathy

The Stoic view of fate should make us sympathetic to the failings of others. Fate can land hard blows, and those who haven’t made improving their character a significant part of their lives are likely to struggle to react well. Fate may have given them the impression that their character isn’t malleable, and that they’re helpless before the tsunami of life that assaults them. Fate, in other words, may render others unable to even know that they can make better choices.  

When hardship befalls others  and they’re not reacting well, The Stoic philosopher Epictetus instructed his students to,

“have the following thought available: ‘What is crushing these people is not the event (since there are other people it does not crush) but their opinion about it.’ Don’t hesitate, however, to sympathize with them in words and even maybe share their groans, but take care not to groan inwardly as well.” (Ench 16)

It also goes without saying someone's fated past can confuse them about what justice looks like, or what’s truly good. This may lead them to act in immoral ways, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have sympathy toward them. 

“When you run up against someone else’s shamelessness, ask yourself this: Is a world without shamelessness possible?”

“No.

Then don’t ask the impossible. There have to be shameless people in the world. This is one of them.” (Meditations 9:42)

That doesn’t mean we can’t protect ourselves from these people. Defend yourself and any victims you can help as best you can.  

But instead of getting angry at them, Marcus suggests a different approach:

“Teach them or endure them.” (Meditations 8:59)

How Fate Makes Us Strong & Content

Believing in fate can help us be stronger, more resilient, and content 

The Stoics embraced a love of fate, which Friedrich Nietzsche dubbed amor fati.

When life makes things easy, great! When life makes things hard, great! Hardships can make us bitter, or they can make us better. The choice between those alternatives is ours. If we see hardship as an opportunity to improve, we probably will. If hardship seems like a disaster, that’s what we’ll make it.

Stoics see hardship as an opportunity to take our practice — the skill of living well — to the next level. They try to be grateful even when life throws lemons at them, without being delusional, which has psychological benefits. 

The Philosopher Seneca put it another way: 

“We should offer ourselves to Fortune so that, by our struggles with it, we may be hardened against it. Fortune will gradually make us an even match for itself. Constant contending with danger will instill a contempt of danger. In the same the bodies of sailors are hardened by the beating of the sea, the hands of the farmers are calloused, the arms of the soldiers have the strength to throw their weapons, and the legs of a runner are nimble: We are strongest in what we have exercised. It is by suffering ills that the mind learns defiance of suffering.” (On Providence) 

Marcus Aurelius, who spent most of his reign being pummeled by hardships, put a spiritual spin on the same idea: 

“Everything suits me that suits your designs, O my universe. Nothing is too early or too late for me that is in your own good time. All is fruit for me that your seasons bring, O nature. All proceeds from you, all subsists in you, and to you all things return.” (Meditations 4.23)