Que Sera Sera

When my mum was little, her mum decided to move, but didn’t know where to go. So, she closed her eyes, stuck a pin in a map, and ended up in Bath. My mum went to an all girls’ school and hated it, so changed schools again. And there? She met my dad.

Mum and Dad xoxo

I love that story. It justifies my belief that everything happens for a reason. Had that pin landed just inches away, my mum could have ended up somewhere else, never met my dad, and never had me… Boo.

Consider it as the butterfly effect. One decision or movement triggers a whole set of events and changes the path in front of you.

Some people say this ‘everything happens for a reason’ mentality is simply a coping mechanism for times that we can’t control; like if someone close to you has to move far away, or you miss a huge party because you were on holiday. It’s a comforting device.

Maybe you would have broken your leg at that party had you gone, you never know.

If this way of thinking was simply for comfort, it means the things that happen in our lives occur because we make them so, thus shaping our paths through our decisions – like when I backed out of a gap year abroad to go to University. More specifically University in Cornwall, instead of Bath, Cardiff or Leeds.

Living in Falmouth will likely have taken me on a different path to the one I would be on had I gone somewhere else, because of the people I meet and the work I achieve – because I chose to do this? Or because that’s how it’s supposed to be?

That’s when I get confused. Everything happening for a reason has, for a long time, been part of my belief system, if you will, yet the more I think about it the less sure I am.

Think about your future. Think about who you might be with in years to come – maybe you have already met them, or perhaps they are still out there somewhere in the world. How do you meet them? Is it because you chose to apply for a job at their work? Or because the opportunity for that job simply came to you?

I once read on a fortune telling website (don’t judge me, I was twelve) that I would meet my man in Burger King… He will accidentally spill his drink on me, then make it up by taking me out. Romantic, right?

I was a vegetarian when I read this, astonished that I would ever even be in Burger King. Since then, I have caved back into carnivorous habits, over-eaten my fair share of Peperami and then drifted back into vegetarianism.

As far as I’m aware this is something I have chosen to do. But does this mean I’ve chosen not to encounter a tall-dark-and-handsome man in Burger King?

Or if it’s meant to be, will life simply find a way?