Fatalism is the lazy man’s way of accepting the inevitable.
I have come across countless folks in my life who appeared deeply exhausted mentally and depleted emotionally despite having solvable complexities in their lives. Most of the times, though, the cause did appear more intrinsic than extrinsic, but their temptations to put blame on external unseen forces made them subconsciously seekers of sympathy from people around them, deep- down a ‘fatalist’; a puppet of supreme powers with sealed destiny which at times made me think : Is he justified in thinking so or is there something else beyond it?
I always viewed getting acquainted with different kinds of peeps as a great opportunity to learn, understand more about people, perspective, life and what not; who came from different spaces of life, strikingly different demographics, contrast perspectives, diverse cultures, incomprehensible languages, unknown ethnicity and so on , right from the one who claimed being ‘ a self-made wo(man)’ who ran against all odds eventually ending up creating history to those who had totally surrendered themselves to the will of celestial powers. Though, in these two extreme categories of people, I observed two different patterns of actions and thinking.
1. People who constantly considered themselves ill-destined dwelling more on concerns, worries, negative thoughts coming from the failures of the past contrary to the hardworking successful beings who continuously focused on futuristic thinking and took their past failures as lessons to grow.
2. Both of them have a very different outlook towards the life:Individuals lingering on past & brooding over ‘why only me had to face it’ whereas the whole world seemed to enjoy everything, focusing on just discovering new problems sticking them in past Vs people who indulged in solutions-oriented approach to sort out things and march ahead by either eradicating odds completely or mitigating the influence of odds.
3. Risk – A huge difference; the former always dreads crossing the boundaries of safety and security woven by themselves only mentally; having almost zero risk taking ability.
4. Some other traits are listed below based on my observation and interactions:
Creating a comfort zone around them at different levels-
Geographical
Social
Psychological
Financial
Subconsciously always made fatalists giving lame excuses to others to defend themselves.
5. Zero time and money investment on upskilling kept the former way behind the World.
6. Lack of the ability to do genuine self-introspection, living constantly in denial mode.
7. Surrounded by a bunch of enablers who feed off their false ideology expressing sympathy towards them, making them feel justified in their thinking and actions keeping them in the unending loop of feeling victimized.
8. Being utterly focused on what they don’t have rather than what they have.
9. Baseless comparisons fueling negativity & envy.
10. Adopting shortcuts or unscrupulous means bypassing legit or desirable practices.
11. Zero or no patience to see things turning around in their favor; having baseless expectations like happening miracles.
12. Expecting exponential returns with negligible investments (in all spheres of life).
13. Staying skeptical about others and filled with self-doubts.
14. Just thinking, either no, or very little action.
15. Lack of perseverance and resilience.
Whether fate, luck, destiny or whatever you may term it, is an illusion, mental construction or some real unseen force, has been and will always be a debatable question. There can’t be a definite answer to it. Various philosophers, sages, gurus have made attempts to decode it, tried solving this mystery since time immemorial. However, we can’t deny the unfairness of life which is not uniform to all (Period).
The world has witnessed enough in last two years- loss of lives, fatal pandemic, killings in civil wars, dreadful violence, political turbulence, frustration, economic and financial crisis, job loss, shutting down of rising businesses, massive loss to companies, startups, so on… affecting lives of each and everyone in some way or the other in different degrees. However, not to forget that there are examples of exceptional resilience as well which led many individuals to rebuild themselves from the scratch with new hopes and ideas during this period.
I personally believe that with consistent efforts, right approach, constructive attitude and positive mindset things can get far better if not the best, life can become much smoother if not lavish, one can create enough wealth to live happily if not like an elite.
There are certainly many things in life which are not in our hands, but that doesn’t mean everything. Does it?