Defines destiny and explores how to get to ones destiny.
Chapter One
There are many directions a life can take. The determinants of those directions are curiously the very simple decisions we make on a daily basis. You see, life is full of nodes. Those nodes are decision points. You could call them decision junctures. Everyday you make minute imperceptible decisions: what to eat, what to wear, what to buy, where to work, who to befriend, where to live, what to read, where to go, what perfume, what school, what phone…the list goes on and on. You made a decision to read this book.
Decisions lead us to the next intersection of our lives. Decisions lead us to our immediate future. Every time you take a decision, you are determining your future. Decisions are thus strategic directions.
Some decisions are obviously big, others small. A big decision is typically of the order of the magnitude of choosing a marriage partner. A wrong choice can send you to a mental asylum, or the mortuary. When you have a bad marriage Socrates said, you become a philosopher.
But some seemingly innocuous decisions have great impact on the outcome of our lives. Suppose someone offered you food, but unknown to you the food was poisoned. As you lifted the first spoon, you had a check – a premonition. But you overwrote the premonition and went ahead to eat the food. A simple decision on whether to eat or not to eat might thus result in death. Simple decisions can have great impact. It all depends on the context. Simple things have been known to topple governments. Simple things generate revolutions. Perhaps we ought to fear simple decisions.
The French revolution began because the masses demanded common bread. So clueless was Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI, about the power of simple things that when she was informed that the masses wanted bread but there was a scarcity, she replied: “Qu’ilsmangent de la brioche”. That means “Let them eat cake!” That utterance would cost her, her head.
(As an aside, acute insensitivity to the needs of the poor in any socio-political context is an invitation to revolution).
The Russian revolution also came about because of scarcity of bread. Bread! When government is inept, or clueless, or insensitive, bread develops extra ordinary powers. Millions of lives were lost to the Russian revolution.
Simple things can create catastrophic consequences. It all depends on context.