Time Lines

 Sometimes I get into a contemplative state of mind. It also might be perceived as day dreaming, or just 'spacing out'. Anyway, I may think about where I am in my life and where I am going, a common event for many, I'm sure.
 It is a complex fabric we weave as we make so many choices during the course of our lives.  As many do, I will sometimes question and even regret a choice I have made. Then I think about what it would have been like if I made a different choice. Although what may seem like a wrong choice leading to undesirable results may also lead to other things that are good. So if I had it to do over again, would I make a different choice, knowing the good things I would miss out on?
 There are those who feel that our lives are predestined, that our fates cannot be changed. And there are those who think we are the Captain's of our souls and we make our own fate. I don't know the answer to that but I have a feeling it is a mixture of the two. Our future is somewhat predetermined by the environment that we are in when we come to be. I was born in 1949 in Virginia into a family and well taken care of. I could have been born in China where the Chinese Civil War was just ending and the Communist Party of China had just taken control. Fortunately that was before the late '70's when China passed a law allowing only one child per family, otherwise I may not have existed at all.
 So other then our place of birth being a vary large factor in dictating our future, the rest is a matter of choices, or is it?  Are the choices made by our parents and later ourselves done by free will or are they guided by the Hand of Fate?  Or is it the Deity that has some say in the matter?
 Ah, we think we know so much but actually we know so little. Either way, if we are predestined or if it all by chance, I will take it. It is a great ride with its ups and downs. Maybe we will know more in the Hereafter.  Oh! Now there is another topic we can work on! But not today.......

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act. - Buddha