“Fate is what happens to us; destiny is what we do with it.” — James Hollis

This chapter is a quiet reckoning.

Because I’ve carried things I didn’t choose:
The mother wound. The betrayals. The loneliness.
The longing for connection that went unmet.

That’s fate — the givens of my life.
But what I do with all of that — how I respond, how I shape it, how I alchemize it — that’s my destiny.

And that’s the line I’m walking now.

I can’t rewrite the past.
But I can refuse to let it dictate the future.

That doesn’t mean pretending I’m unscarred.
It means honoring the scars, then choosing what kind of man I want to be anyway.
Especially for my son. Especially for myself.

Fate says: “You’ve been hurt.”
Destiny says: “And still, you rise.”

This chapter invites me to stop waiting for life to be fair — and start living like my story matters.
Not in spite of what happened… but because of it.

Reflection Prompt:
What parts of my life were fate — and what parts am I still free to shape as destiny?