#235 - The Accident is Your Training

The cosmos has a way of making us succumb to “fate”. This word gets tangly sometimes – does this mean we have no free will? Of course, we do! However, that doesn’t mean that we have complete control over everything. We cannot choose which way life pushes us, but we can choose how we fall. Meaning: we can choose how we react to such a situation. Sometimes, these “pushes” take the form of accidents, injuries, and screw-ups. So how should we best deal with such things?

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Introduction

The cosmos has a way of making us succumb to “fate”. This word gets tangly sometimes – does this mean we have no free will? Of course, we do! However, that doesn’t mean that we have complete control over everything. We cannot choose which way life pushes us, but we can choose how we fall. Meaning: we can choose how we react to such a situation. Sometimes, these “pushes” take the form of accidents, injuries, and screw-ups. So how should we best deal with such things?

Fate & Free Will in Stoicism

The topic of fate and free will is very complicated in many ways. In fact, there are modern academics – Sam Harris being one of the more popular ones – that deem free will as being just an illusion. Certainly, one could understand this perspective.

What if you had no control at all over what you were going to do next? What if it was just all an illusion? What if you’re simply on a train that is chugging along? You have no control – you simply must follow the tracks. But you trick yourself, like a child, into believing that you are actually steering the train.