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People believe in many things, religion, the family, love and so on. There is a quote I’d like to introduce. “If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to St. Francis of Assisi’s shoulders” (Milan Kundera) . This means that if love is to be powerful, it must have coincidences. I’d like to talk about whether coincidence could be fate.
At first I thought fate and coincidence were opposing things, so I thought, since I believe in fate, that probably means I can’t believe in coincidence. I thought I believed in fate because when I think back in my life there are some things that cannot be explained just by the word coincidence. But the more I thought about it, I came to think that maybe fate and coincidence are two sides of the same coin.
The first example involves my friend. I met a person at a volunteer camp and she became my best friend. We would not have met if either one of us didn’t participate in the camp. Since we went to different schools, we would have probably spent our lives not knowing each other for the rest of our lives.
Another example concerns my dog. We were looking for a dog for a while, but could not find one. However, one day we saw a dog by chance at an autumn festival. We could have gone home without visiting the festival, but instead that day, we decided to stop at the festival. There we met one particular dog that caught our eyes, and we decided to have her.
There are many other smaller things that I wonder what would have happened if I act differently. Both of the examples could be called pure coincidences, but I think some coincidences are fate and were meant to happen. Although my experiences aren’t related with love, I think both of my experiences were meant to happen. Now I think it is hard to draw a line between fate and coincidence.
↓Here is a link about St. Francis of Assisi