Running From Fate - Uncovering The Power Within The Pursuit

 The man was sure he was being followed. Furtive glances behind him revealed a shadowy face and figure. Why would anyone follow him, he wondered? Who was that behind him? He darted into doorways and sneaked glances to see who was following him. The shadowy figure disappeared. Suddenly he had an instinct about who was following him. It was Fate! He knew it! He had to escape.

Quickly he made a plan. He knew of a rectory close by; the priest was his friend. He could hide there until Fate passed him by; Fate would never find him there! Hurriedly he began making his way to the rectory, always checking behind him to make sure that Fate was not closing in. He would make it! He would hide from Fate and escape. Arriving late in the night, he pounded on the door to rouse his friend. He brushed past him when the door opened. "Let me in, hurry, I have to hide."

"What are you hiding from, whatever is wrong," the priest asked his friend?

"It's Fate, he's been following me for hours, and I need a place to hide."

A sudden pounding on the door announced another visitor. "Let me see who has also come to invade my evening," said the priest. He walked to the door and pulled open the sliding window. There before him stood Fate. "It's Fate at my door," he said to his friend. "I am going to ask him what he wants."

"No, no, wait. Let me go out the back door; you keep him at the front door while I escape."

"But where will you go," asked the priest? "I'm going to Mexico; he'll never find me there!" The man ran through the rectory to the back door and disappeared into the night.

The priest, being a man of God, was not afraid of Fate. He opened the door and walked outside. "Fate, why are you following that man, why are you scaring him?"

"Me scaring him; he scared me! I have an appointment to meet him in Mexico in three days," replied Fate.

And so goes the story of Fate. Always on our heels; he's a powerful boogey man who relentlessly chases us as we pursue our dreams. Who is this apparition of our imagination who holds such power over us? What is this that makes us cower and run like a frightened child?

Fate is the keeper of all our choices, good and bad, all of our decisions, and all the turns in our life path. We run from all the choices we did not have to accept responsibility for, from the secrets that thankfully remained hidden, and from all the parts of ourselves that we imagine to be flawed and therefore, require a secret hiding place. We imagine Fate to represent the end; the final stopping point where all those hidden parts of us tumble out and confront us one last time as we exit our journey. And so we run, run away.

Fate is a bully; he uses fear as his weapon to drive us relentlessly forward, always running, and always hiding from that which we hope remains hidden. All this chaos ensures that we will make worse choices that will be stored as more secrets and become stronger weapons to beat our self-esteem to tiny bits and pieces.

What happens when we confront Fate, as the priest did? We un-cloak him and discover he is us; Fate is all of our fears and false perceptions all dressed up to chase us around and scare us into submission; into admitting that we are that which we feared we would become.

Running from ourselves is an exercise in futility. It is like running from our shadow rather than embracing the fact that we all have a darker part of our personality. It may have peeked out from behind the doorways, but is now firmly in check as we stand on the foundation and beliefs we have embraced through the lessons we have learned and experiences we have endured.

When we consciously acknowledge all our secrets and fears, even if only to ourselves; we can see and accept them. It is here that we find inner peace, where we learn to accept all the parts of ourselves consciously. Oddly, Fate becomes a friend at this juncture. Waiting in the future to deliver the best of what we have been pursuing; and why not? He's You.