On one level we create our own destiny.  We have total freedom to shape and mold our lives to our hearts deepest desire.  This dream of life is bendable if we are strong willed enough.

On another level we find that we never really had a choice, our actions are the result of innumerable previous thoughts and actions.  We look at our lives and feel that things never really could have went any different.  That things as they are because that is how they are.

Destiny or fate is something that we both choose freely, yet don’t have any say in.  One may feel that they are living as they truly want to, as they must, and that there is actually no possibility of living any other way.  To live this way is to live in joyful surrender, yet intelligent revolt.  It is walking a razor’s edge and the only way to live.

This is the transcendence of the paradox of free will.

Lead me from the unreal to the Real

Lead me from the darkness to the Light

Lead me from the temporary to the Eternal

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad