Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.
By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.
What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.
I like to think that I’m in charge of my life and that, for better or worse, the course that my life has taken was established by the decisions — the choices — I’ve made along the way.
I know that there are others who feel pretty much the same way that I do, that our lives are formed by things that are within our control. But I’m sure that others feel very differently, and believe that much of our lives are formed by things that are outside of our control. Perhaps they call it fate or destiny, but the overall course of our lives, they believe, is predetermined.
And that brings me to today’s provocative question.
To what degree have you been able to control the course that your life has taken?
If you choose to participate, you may respond with a comment or write your own post in response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments. Note that recently a lot of bloggers have been reporting that pingbacks aren’t working.
This, That, and the Other 
To me, it’s not one or the other: What happens to us is outside our control but how we respond and how we decide is very much our responsibility. 😎
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You’re absolutely right. Sometimes what happens to us is outside of our control, but what we can control is how we respond to those situations. Thanks for joining in this week.
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You are very welcome. Thanks for hosting it every week. 🥰
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I think I’ve been in control but have I really?
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I don’t believe we are REALLY in control of our lives. It has nothing to do with “outside powers.” It’s more about luck, other people, health, coincidence, and the weird stuff you never expected — but happens anyway.
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You’re probably right.
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Illness, accidents, recessions and market bumps can turn your world upside down. Been there, done that. It was bad but somehow, despite all indications to the contrary, it worked out. I thought we would never recover when I couldn’t work because I was too sick and Garry got laid off right before his pension would have vested (one of the really ugly trick corporation love to play on older employees). We have 0 income for nearly three years and how we survived, I will never know. AND in there, with NO medical insurance (it was pre-Obama), I also got cancer.
And yet here we are. I should be dead, but I ain’t there yet. And life is better. I didn’t think it could improve, but somehow, it did. Go figure.
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You’re a survivor, Marilyn!
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It would appear so. Or, as I usually put it, “So far, so good.” Who knows what tomorrow could bring?
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Here’s mine
https://pensitivity101.wordpress.com/2023/03/01/fandangos-provocative-question-march-1st/
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None really. I went from a controlling dad at eighteen to a husband same at 19. After 2013 I felt a freedom but then my legs stopped working and I got cancer again. Now almost ten years later I do feel I have some control but not as much as I would like.
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
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Here is my contribution – Reflections on Life Control
https://theinkwelljourney.blogspot.com/2023/03/reflections-on-life-control.html
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There’s always a choice to go with the flow, with what you know, or to fight the current and swim against the tide.
I am the black sheep, the outsider, the wrong ‘un, and it might be tough, dangerous and scary, then and now, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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The trajectory for the question — which I had read in the blue to start with — was changed when I read this: I know that there are others who feel pretty much the same way that I do, that our lives are formed by things that are within our control. But I’m sure that others feel very differently, and believe that much of our lives are formed by things that are outside of our control. Perhaps they call it fate or destiny, but the overall course of our lives, they believe, is predetermined.
Ironic in appearance, given my responses to your provocative question (not this one) or quote of the week (or some such) presented in the same words at least twice Fandango, I have made the best of how things worked out or went or go. Yet, I don’t agree that it equals things going the best. Certainly, the best subsequently possible in my situation could only be with my best choices for the most part. I did learn, however, that not everything even in that regard can really be in our own control. Consistent for why and how I’ve responded before to the idea of things going the best for those who make the best out of how things have gone, I’m pissed about some of it.
I was writing an illustrative thingy, but it
got too long. Again… a book.
Although it would be discernible that I didn’t control a few major aspects in life — and control is probably different from making decisions while what I mean is that I was not permitted some huge decisions — it would be due to manipulative and dastardly people. I don’t believe in fate or kismet.
I do sometimes entertain the idea that I was supposed to or had previously chosen to evolve a lot in this lifetime or incarnation or to be prepared for a future, though. (This would put together some sort of destiny, maybe, with things turning out for the best if you just try. There is no other way around it, in my view. Otherwise, we have to admit life is only shit for some people. Or we are kidding ourselves or worse, slandering those we don’t care about.)
Further, while I was making the best of how things had gone, I went through learning that health can be amazingly harmed despite doing all the best things. I do mean clearly harmed by the jackassery, not just perchance and not by violence. I’m not pissed about finding out what can happen to health. (And I’m glad my encounter was resolved with an ER visit and a “never again” kind of stance.) I am ever against the jerks in life (including, but not limited to, my mother as she has formed herself or let herself be formed as a self-styled superior being). I wasn’t pissed before (at others beyond her); did become pissed after I learned. Nevertheless, I stuck all the time to what I thought was right… and all of my children are good. That they are well and I haven’t lost my way is fine enough with me. In book form, there will be Scripture included. And at least a prayer, two, three…
I’ll give you a taster. My dad taught me this (the full chapter):
Yea… though I travel [my own ad lib] through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. For Thou art with me.
https://biblia.com/books/nkjv/Ps23.4
A Psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul… ~
…
Forever.
__________
No, my dad wasn’t a Bible thumper.
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Actually, a pretty good reply. Control is the final illusion — and even when we think we have a solid grip on life, that doesn’t mean we make the choices — and our best choices may not make a difference anyway.
I always wonder about people who live a perfectly controlled life only to discover they will still die, just like all the people who made bad choices. It seems so unfair, doesn’t it?
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Since I’ve written about this before, so I’ll answer in the comments. My life has been a combination of both my decisions and outside influences, like everyone else in this world. I do believe in destiny and feel that we end up where and with whom we are supposed to be in the end. How we act and what we think plays a major role in forming our personalities. And that is completely on us.
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