lessons | Angels Bark

A quote by Jean de La Fontaine:

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

photo credit: James Darren Hicks

Wow. I heard this quote the other day and it whacked me with its powerful truth. I have always believed that our destiny is already planned out for us. Not to say that we can’t alter the course and choose just how we arrive at that destination but no matter how we get there and no matter when we end up there, it is where we were always meant to be.

Some folks think destiny and fate are different. I don’t. But it made me look deeper into the definitions of both.

Destiny: what happens in the future: the things that someone or something will experience in the future; a power that is believed to control what happens in the future; a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power

Fate: a power that is believed to control what happens in the future;the things that will happen to a person or thing; the future that someone or something will have; the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do: Destiny

So you see, destiny or fate, either term can be used. I look at my own life and all that’s happened to me. It hasn’t all been good, that’s for sure. Some of the really bad times and the really bad people that came into my life were all supposed to be there, I’m convinced. For example, in one situation, I met a person who destroyed my life for a while. When I look back on how we met, I realize it was orchestrated by unseen forces. I was in a building I had never been in and really had no need to ever be in but for this one appointment. He was sitting on a bench when I walked by, our eyes met and we shared a flirty smile. And I continued on my way. But then, the person I had the appointment with was running late and his office was locked up, the class that this guy was in let out early because the professor didn’t show up and it just so happened to be right next to the closed office where I was standing, waiting. He came out and there I was. My fate was sealed in that very moment. And the lessons I was to learn were really big ones, like the TRUST YOUR GUT lessons, and they would only come to me after the destruction.

I had looked back years after and realized that something told me, when he asked for my number, a little gnawing in my gut said there was something not quite right, something was off with this guy. But since I couldn’t put my finger on it, I dismissed it. And I believe I was supposed to dismiss it, for it was after this situation ended that I had the realization that my gut instinct was to be trusted next time. (And I have trusted my gut ever since). And looking back, when our involvement started, there were so many signs, so many obvious signs that I completely overlooked. I saw all the signs but I was blind to them. Only later did I see them as red flashing lights.

Rubble by Caleb Roenigk

Out of the rubble came one of life’s really important lessons. After all, trusting your instinct is necessary for survival.

I’ve had people come into my life that were only in it for a short time. People who I thought were going to be life-long friends but some of those associations ended because of me. More lessons learned. Yes, I believe these people were supposed to come into my life specifically so I could learn and grow to become a better person, because it was due to my own shortcomings that the friendship ended. In one case it was an overreaction and anger that caused the demise of that friendship. It was entirely my fault and it was a bitter pill to swallow because I had valued that specific friendship and I paid the price of losing it. A very valuable lesson resulted and one that, thankfully, I won’t have to learn again.

There will be other lessons for me to learn, for sure. And some of them will inevitably be painful. That is by design. Jean de Lu Fontaine’s quote speaks to just that.

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

In my example of the lesson that taught me about my instinctual powers: I could have chosen not to give that guy my number and thus never developed a relationship with him, true. But someone or something else would have come along to teach me the lesson that I was supposed to learn about my gut.

The friendship that I ruined might not have occurred had I not met this person in the first place. However, I was still supposed to learn that lesson so it would have been someone else in a different place and different time perhaps, and that valuable lesson would indeed have been taught regardless.