A debate as long as human thought and philosophy still hasn’t concluded – do we have free will or are all things predetermined? And we just don’t know. As with most things in life, truth is somewhere in between the cracks which would suggest that there is a bit of both at play here.

The determinism stance would refer not to some esoteric master plan the universe has with you but to the deep emotions, connections and desires we’re largely not aware of and can’t pinpoint their origin, nor fight them since we’re not aware of their existence. It refers to your given social, economic, cultural, political puzzle that you had no control in being born into and which shaped you. But the difference between humans and most animals is that you do have a choice to override something in yourself by the fact that you’ve developed a rational prefrontal cortex that can stop and interfere with the basic instincts originating deeply from the subconscious. It’s difficult and grueling because the brain has been constituted to keep a status Q and keep you away from things that are hard, scary and energy consuming, but it can be done and here is where free will lies, although you may never really know why you’re exactly attracted to that person, theme, job, why you do most of the things you do, where do certain affinities or phobias come from…

There is a balance where you accept that some things are unknowable to you and you need to let go of the naive motivational cheerleading of the Secret that you can do, be or have anything, manifest things simply by thinking and willing, deluding yourself into likeness of omnipotence. You have a rational say in it but this absolute claim is ridiculous. On the polar opposite stand the defeatism – where you believe you’re a pawn, a helpless leaf that had all of its directions determined by the inertia of the river.

None of this is completely true, nor completely false. Life unfolds according to the principles of necessity, coincidence and the capacity to self-reflect and self-control. Your free will lays mostly on the intersection of those three things. Some things are unavoidable as a rule of natural laws, everything will aim towards entropy, this is why you grow old and die. Other things are pure coincidences, and no, there is no destiny pulling your strings from the shadows because if given enough time all that can happen will. What you do with the first two and how you react to them is at your disposal to do as you please – being devastated and entrapped by events and occurrences, instincts and obsessive behaviors, or actually implementing the freedom to choose to make the best of it. You are just as free to become a better version of you as you are to not become it. Will you or won’t you is up to you… or is it?