Coincidence...

Coincidence, that’s all anything really is. It’s all anything ever is. Every moment up to this has been a part of a long chain of events, each link of it connected to another. The chain keeps growing longer every second, and new links are being forged as we speak. These links have been wrought, in part, by the situations we go through. A good part of it can also be attributed to the flurry of people we meet, whose lives have coincided with our own. We are like particles that collide, both of us change for the one moment we meet. But then we drift apart, never to meet again.

There are a few though, who linger long enough to leave an indelible mark on our lives, in ways both good and bad. There are people we hold close to our hearts, the ones who have been able to break through our shells and see our true selves. Then there are the ones who, perhaps unwittingly, have caused us hardship, pain and made us hate the world at some point in our lives. But ultimately their actions have caused us to reorient our perspectives, to reflect and grow stronger. And there are countless other people, who are but evanescent to us, mere flashes in our peripheral vision. Yet they affect our lives in unimaginable ways. They are like dominoes, who upon their fall cause a chain of events, one leading to the next. To these we remain totally oblivious, until we are caught in one of these chains ourselves.

Each of us is bound by this law of causality. Of one event causing another, which in turn becomes the cause of another. But imagine, what if one domino from this chain fell in a different way, at a slightly different angle. It would wipe out an entire chain of effects, but would in turn lead to a whole new pattern.  Imagine that your friend gave you a great book and you had decided to read it at home, rather than go to a party. But what if this party was where you would meet someone who eventually became your best friend? What if you got stuck in traffic and missed the train where you ran into the person who turned out to be your first crush? What if you picked a different job, and moved into a different city than the one where you met the love of your life? And what if they had made different choices on the same days?

Our lives would be entirely different without these little coincidences. In a sense, we owe a part of ourselves to this inextricable web of causality, for it has shaped our lives and our personalities. We are not completely enslaved by this law, yet we are never free from it. We are free to make our own choices but no one can predict where each of our choices would take us. Every action we take, or inaction, would have its own effect. These effects would cause further effects, and a chain reaction starts whose end is beyond our ability to foresee. This chain of events could change absolutely nothing, or it might alter the course of our lives, for better or for worse. We can never know for certain, until we tread that road.  

So, what we can do is accept that life is a leap of faith. You can make your choices, but you can’t know for certain where these choices will take you.  When you are at a crossroads you can see where the different roads lead to, but you can’t predict the twists and turns in the road. Where one road ends and another begins, you know not. All you can do is hope that your path and your choices take you to what you truly desire. So have faith in yourself and enjoy the journey.