Are our actions truly our own? Essay

What we do, where we walk, how we act and what decisions we take; are they guided by our free will or by the hand of fate? Even if we do have free will; are we one hundred percent, truly free or is free will just training wheels carrying us along different paths to our predestined location? If so, we are inherently limited from birth in the aspects of our intelligence, success, and true freedom depending on how binding the shackles of fate truly are. We can’t control circumstances of our birth or generally life-altering things that are out of our control such as a random lightning strike or traffic accident, but perhaps we can control the broader course of our life through our actions. One who trains their body diligently and with supreme effort may become a famous MMA fighter with a body that the ancient Greeks would marvel at, but what if that person’s profession and training were stamped into him at birth? At conception? At the beginning of time itself? Possible, but what if he just made a decision one day and earned it? There simply is no way to know, short of speaking with the divinity that has assigned us all our fates if such a being exists. Say we are all prisoners in an inescapable prison of destiny. Perhaps some of us are given the opportunity to control our fates. Perhaps some of us are afforded a choice between the blue pill or the red pill; the choice to be a living puppet or to break into our own universal order and control our own lives. We will never know. The one thing we may know however, is that we may be given this choice one day, and this rift in the balance of the universe will afford us enough free will in the situation simply to make the decision between the blue pill and the red pill. We can know in our hearts what our decisions will be when we are handed our destinies and told to take control and become the master of our own destinies or release them back into the cosmic wind, and become a simple puppet once more. I can speak for no one but myself, but I know my answer in my heart. The thought of my life being anything but my own up until this point sickens me. I will not be a puppet,  I will not be led forcefully through my destiny by the imperceptible shackles of fate. I will take control of my destiny, steer my own ship; I will be the master of my own destiny if the expense is my life; because I know the life I led will have truly been mine.