Coincidences

For a long time, I never questioned whether destiny existed or not: to me it had always been a bit of a given. A few months ago, when I told a friend of mine I thought having met her in St Andrews was destiny, she corrected me; "There's no such thing as destiny. Only coincidences." She said that the notion of destiny is inflexible, as if our whole lives have been predetermined and there's no room for chance and changes of direction. She still called having met each other a "lucky coincidence" and, although lucky, it happened because we were in the right place at the right time, nothing else.

The more I think of this, the more I'm convinced she's right, particularly looking back at my entire St Andrews history. To begin with, I ended up there having chosen it as a safety net and under recommendation of my ex-boyfriend, for whom St Andrews was the dream university--I had never heard of it. In the end, unexpectedly for the both of us, I ended up in Scotland and he in London, after being offered a place at a university that was a dream even bigger than St Andrews.

It seems that after that point it was all a succession of lucky and unlucky coincidences: being put in flat 5 in Donaldson at DRA where I met one of my best friends, changing degrees and finding a vocation, ending some friendships that did not necessarily bring out the best in me. My friend is right: if destiny existed, wouldn't things be much clearer and linear; would there really be so much room for error? Surely, it is because so many things have been determined by coincidence, rather than destiny, that it's been possible to go back and make adjustments. 

And maybe there's a part of me that still clings on to the idea of destiny a little bit; maybe because I don't like to think that everything that will happen to me is, ultimately, up to me (talk about commitment issues, huh?). But knowing that coincidences happen, and make us realise what we thought was "meant-to-be" isn't actually meant to be, is one of the best lessons a friend has taught me.