A fork in the path...

How many of us believe in fate? I'm pretty sure many of us do. Its so good to believe that whatever we do is not controlled by us, but is all pre-determined, isn't it? Makes us feel a little bit irresponsible. You don't have to think too much about what you are doing and why you are doing it. Just go with the flow..

But what if there's no fate? What if the decisions you take each and every moment are changing something in the future? Yup I'm talking about chaos theory. So our destiny is purely controlled by our actions. A simple decision like today I'll go to market to buy vegetables, maybe changing my life drastically. Scary, isn't it?

Most of the times I do believe in fate. Its fate that I have parents like mine. Its fate that I have friends like I have. Its fate that I chose to study engineering. Its fate that Sriram came into my life. Its all fate :). But sometimes, just sometimes when I am taking a drastic step, I start wondering whether I am changing my life. I believe that all that happens, happens for the good (so in one way pushing all my decisions again on fate :-D), but when I can see a clear path that I could have gone on, thats when I wonder. What if I had taken that fork in the path instead of the one I'm going on...

This thought first came into my mind when I had decided to leave my first company for the second. My first company gave me a carrot of sending me onsite just when I was leaving. But my decision had been made to join the second. And that decision has turned out to be wonderful in many ways since then. But at that point, I could clearly see another path I could have taken i.e staying with the first company and going onsite. If I believe in fate, then I was meant to join the second company. But if, if by any chance, my destiny was in my hands, then I took a right decison which is still working out for me so well. What if I had made the wrong choice? Or was the other decision a wrong choice? Maybe my life would have been equally well then too. Who knows!!

Surprisingly I never felt the fork in the path when I married Sri. If you think about it, I could have not married him and my life could have gone in a totally different path. But I never thought of not marrying him. I never thought of the other path, so I believe its fate :-D. Some weird logic huh? :-D

Again, when Sri was offered a choice to come to U.S on a project, he asked me whether I was comfy with the whole thing. I just told him that whatever decision he takes would be fine with me. But again, I could feel the fork, where we could have stayed in India or could have come to U.S. Very strange, the way the mind works sometimes. But what if, I had stayed in India? Would I have been so close to Sri, like I am today? Now I know that I love my parents and miss them a lot. Had I been there, would I have been aware of some things that I am more aware of now? I don't know.

Ok, why did this topic come up suddenly now after all these days? Thats because we recently encountered another fork in the path. Since we came to US, our plan was for Sri to look for a job here. And 2 weeks ago, the job came and fell into his lap without him even making huge efforts. Do you call that fate? ;-) :-D. There's actually not much change. We'll continue to be here in Lexington, KY. So there's no house change either. Even if he had continued in his current company, we'd have been here in US for about 3 years and that plan hasn't changed. So why do I define it as a fork? Just because maybe, just maybe, had he continued in his current company, Sri might have been asked to do a project in Bangalore. Maybe we could have gone there and stayed there for some time. So many maybes {sighs}. Now its sure that we'll be here for 3 years. We are planning a vacation to Bangalore, but its not the same as going there for good :(.

The new job is a wonderful career move for Sri and yup, logically everything's turning out good. If its fate, its wonderful. Even if we are controlling our destiny, I know we are making the right choice. So why does the mind think about forks in the path etc? I guess sometimes we just need a reason to be unhappy. Probably one of human being's variables is always equal to not being content. Thats the way God's software works...