I found an interesting online article entitled 'The two kinds of stories we tell about ourselves' written by Emily Esfahani Smith in here. It says that we have all created our own personal histories, marked by highs and lows, that we share with the world - and we can shape them to live with more meaning and purpose.
I can say no more. I agree with that opening remark. We create our own personal histories. Under the destiny we have, we create it. Because, don't forget, destiny is not totally (we can say as one hundred percent) given by it is. God, as I believe, gives a chance to us, a human being to choose what we want to be except the defined three matters: marriages, deaths and fortune or luck (jodoh, mati dan rizki).
I can give a simple example. You are, pretend, in elementary school age - grade six. You nearly are facing a national exam, of course you need, of course, an extra hard-work to study to face the exam. However, you choose the opposite. You don't study, you are just playing around, having fun with friends. Will the result be good or satisfied? Of course, it is not. So, you 'choose' your destiny, you choose to be bad, not the opposite.
That's what I meant by 'to choose what we want to' above. God has allowed us to choose and the result will be your destiny. Under the above circumstances, the destiny is your choice and if you are choosing to work hard prior to national exam, insya Allah - if God willing, the result will be satisfied. At least you have shown your prior positive efforts towards the exam.
Furthermore, I believe that based on the above explanation, the combination of the defined destiny and 'your choice' destiny will form an understanding as 'nothing happens by chance' or tidak ada sesuatu yang kebetulan. You may learn from or look back to your 'life stories.' You may see, perhaps, as a beautiful stories, only there are 'low seasons' or 'high seasons.'
Hence, you develop your stories, you create your stories. you may put pieces of your life stories into several chapters. The unification of your stories will show us, as Mary Catherine Bateson - the anthropologist said that we need to understand that our lives is coherent and it is meaningful.
She added that we a real storytellers - all engaged. Storyteller, as my experiences as a hand-puppet storyteller - pendongeng boneka, need to create or develop an interesting story prior to storytelling, sebelum mendongeng. To perform a nice storytelling, to perform a good and interesting show.
We are storytellers, let's develop our own stories into good stories, good life chapters. But the right to choose is yours then.
Cheers,
@kangbugi
(foto: dokumentasi pribadi)