The purpose of your life: is it predetermined or is it random or is it important?

“Our true calling, our true work in this world, becomes a consequence of our lives. Our work can transform and transcend the traumas we survive, turning them into something useful for ourselves and, we hope, for others.”

– Louise DeSalvo, Virginia Woolf Scholar

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, both fate and fate mean “a predetermined state or end.” Fate implies an inevitable and generally adverse outcome. Where fate implies something predetermined and often suggests a great or noble course or end.

In other words, both fate and destiny infer that some kind of predetermination exists.

As for who or what or where did that default result originate from? Well, I suspect the answer depends on which belief system you are most aligned with.

Regardless of what you personally believe and/or have experienced in life, the idea that our souls are here on earth to serve some kind of purpose can be reassuring (especially if we feel like we’re on the “right” path) or unsettling. . (if we feel rather lost and diverted).

Or, if we believe that this whole exercise is just one big chaotic game of dice that just happens randomly, then even if we don’t believe in any kind of predetermined plan or individual purpose, that doesn’t necessarily mean our lives aren’t. it has no meaning. Rather, our lives can have the meaning we assign to them, rather than some force majeure.

However, as I discovered exploring the possibility of life after death, it wasn’t until after I lost someone very dear to me that I suddenly became VERY interested in whether or not I still existed, in some way, after death. from her body.

I suspect the same is true of fate, luck, and the possibility that our souls have some kind of higher purpose for being here: we may not think too much about it, until we are forced to…until we really do. amount.

In my experience, life after a significant loss is when life’s big questions come to the surface. I think this is partly because seeking, and perhaps finding, a higher meaning in the wake of a tragedy helps make any heartbreak we’re experiencing a little more…acceptable.

Do you believe in the idea that there is a “Divine Plan” for each of us?

God knows (pardon the pun) I’ve heard that whispered in my ear enough times in the days and weeks after my husband, John, died. And frankly, that particular flatness offered me little comfort. Instead, I was tempted to finish off and punch the person in the nose.

Why?

Because I found it presumptuous for people to tell me that John’s sudden and easily preventable death was part of a greater plan hatched by a God who may or may not exist… and as such, I better accept it.

To me, the concept reeked of apathy, especially when I realized that this “Divine Plan” is not something that any of us mere mortals would come to know about. Rather, it is assumed that it is enough that a plan exists, so there is no need to ask any further questions.

But what good is it for God to have a great plan if no one knows what it IS?

I guess that’s where faith comes in.

However, maybe because there were so many people telling me that God had a plan for me and John, I began to think that maybe they were right. So what did I do? Why, I tried to figure out the Plan, or at least, our little parts of it.

I wasn’t very successful.

But now that almost 17 years have passed since his death, I am free to view things much more objectively than in those early days. And I can’t deny the possibility that there might be some kind of plan afoot. Or maybe it’s just the way I choose to frame the situation?

Here are some facts from our history:

1.) John and I used to argue about my procrastination as a writer. I had read Virginia Woolf’s book, A Room of One’s Own, several times. Woolf argued that for women to write fiction well, they needed a room of their own and a secure income. John thought that was ridiculous. He thought that motivation and me sitting down to write something was much more important.

2.) The day before John died, we had one last discussion about me not writing and I told him how scared I was of waking up 20 years later and still not finished writing a book. He looked at me and said, “You’re probably right about that…as long as you know that that will have been your choice.”

3.) Because John died in the line of duty and we had mortgage insurance, I was entitled to receive exactly what Virginia Woolf had proposed to me: a secure income for the rest of my life and a whole house, paid for on her fully at age 32. in which to write

4.) Two weeks later, I began writing what would become my book, A Widow’s Awakening. It was published 8 years later…well under the 20 year time limit.

5.) A few years after his death, for some unknown reason, I took a playwriting course. The first script for my first play was called Salvador, and it’s about John’s death from his brain injury, with none other than Virginia Woolf as his spiritual guide.

And then there are the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund’s workplace safety initiatives. If John had not died as a result of a preventable fall in an unsafe workplace, the Fund would not exist, and I certainly would not be a safety advocate.

So do I believe in fate, destiny and/or some kind of Divine Plan?

I honestly don’t know WHAT I believe. But I do believe that there are much bigger forces at play in our lives and our job is to get up every day and do our best in whatever is in front of us… and everything else seems to fall into place. Eventually.

“God does not die the day we stop believing in a personal deity. But we die the day our lives are no longer illuminated by the constant glow of daily-renewed wonder whose source is beyond reason.”

– Dag Hammarskjold, former UN Secretary General