Fate as a Friend

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Some say that Life is made up of lost opportunities. Whilst that may be correct, Life is of course comprised of many aspects and to imply missed opportunities is foremost among them displays a negative mind-set that may even, for those of that demeanour, escalate those lost opportunities.

Nevertheless when I look back at my life I can think of many opportunities that I have not taken, regret not having taken and today—at 63—despair of ever taking. They range from the relative mundane such as not going to the Bruce Springsteen concert to the life changing such as not travelling the world or not becoming proficient at playing a musical instrument—I would have loved to be a rock drummer.

But one opportunity I did take, one afforded me by my late mother, was to become a writer. It wasn’t immediate, I started as a delivery boy in a newspaper, but doors opened continually and often fate intervened to help. In that regard, and in having the mother whom I did, I have been truly blessed. Let me say this though—and here we are arriving at the theme of this Fryday—I don’t think I am particularly talented as a writer but I am a good reader, a vociferous reader, and that, along with fate, the mother and luck, has helped immensely.

A young lady whom I met yesterday and who is yearning to be employed in the communication industry prompted these thoughts. She is a hard-worker, intelligent and has a supportive mother; yet you can see the doubt in her eyes and what is extravagantly called the fear of the future. That is understandable; at her stage of life, much of the future stretches before her like an unmapped desert. Yet she will have guides across that desert. There will be people to help her. There will be opportunities that come up—some of her own doing, others through sheer luck or the intervention of Fate. Nobody, and I mean nobody (unless they choose) is left to face the future alone.

My life has undergone many changes. One of the most abrupt and ultimately joyous was in 1986 when I won a major writing competition that I had not even entered. But Fate intervened, and I was subsequently offered, and took, the opportunity to write full-time. Another more recent was the meeting of my wife under a set of circumstances so unlikely that many have said it was Fate playing Cupid. I agree. It was.

I am now likely to make another change (with my wife, not to my wife J) and like that young lady yesterday I, too, have a new and uncharted desert to cross.  But cross it I will, because I will have Fate as a friend and a glorious nurturing thing called Life to lead and to lead me.