CBS is running an article “Fate Steps In; He Misses Flight 3407” which states that if Paul Twaragowski’s connecting flight from Newark had been on time he’d have boarded the fatal flight to Buffalo which crashed last week.

Did Fate step in? Did something intervene to prevent Twaragowski from boarding the plane? Nope. It’s just the way things worked out.

When I was in my teens I was hit by a car whilst cycling to school. The car hit the front wheel of my bycicle and demolished it. I was plastered along the side of the car and walked away sans injury except for a deep cut in my index finger.

You might say if I’d left the house 1 second earlier, I would’ve been under the front of the car and likely killed. You might say if I’d left a second LATER I’d have avoided the collision altogether. But heck, it’s just the way it worked out. There’s no fate. Fate’s just something we made up in our heads.

Unless you can make forward looking statements ahead of time, predicting what will happen, you can’t look back at something that’s already happened and conclude that that’s the way it was intended.

It might take some of the fun and mystery out of life but it’s surely better to live in reality than in some make-believe world.