I'd say it's more about choice and consequence than fate or self-determination.

You get to make your own choices as to how you handle things and sometimes people make choices you have no control over and they still affect you. Sometimes, those choices(either your own or others) have very long lasting effects on you.

In that sense, everything happens for a "reason" but I don't buy into that reason being some kind of divine plan for any of us. It happened because somebody made a choice that led to that happening, or by randomness in some cases.

I believe in fate and that everything happens for a reason.

It's too late! She's been infected by the Disney!

Quickly! Get the quarantine team in here!

It's worse than I thought!!!

We're going to need an experienced hazmat team now!

Define fate and destiny please.

And here I was wondering what kind of stage name Self-Determination was supposed to be.

You're not making this easier!

I'm a big believer in pre-determination.

We all have choice and we all determine how we react to everything, but the knowledge of our choice and actions are already laid out in a larger backdrop of the world. No one can make you decide to take the right or the wrong path, but whether or not we take that path has already been known.

For me, that doesn't mean I don't have freedom or that I am not accountable for my actions. On the contrary, it gives me a level of boldness I wouldn't normally have. If I do something, it is because I am SUPPOSED to do something. It was my fate, come success or failure, to do what I did. I face the consequences and rewards of those actions, but at least I can do them without fear, timidity or hesitation... because it was my role to do them.

Basically Fate is how Jimmy defined it.

Of course I feel we have a certain amount of self- determination. I don't believe that any invisible man in the clouds is shaping each of our futures. However, because of our fallible nature, because of our circumstances & genetic tendencies/pre-dispositions, I feel that some outcomes are somewhat inevitable for some people. I am getting more and more certain of this each year.

Basically, I don't believe people can change on a fundamental level. But that's another debate for another day...

0_o

Fate wins.

And I'm bored.