I don't think we're fated for anything. Maybe there are statistical likelihoods and probable outcomes, but nothing is certain. I mean, I suppose we're all fated to search for food and shelter, and we're all destined to die in some way, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Plus, isn't the question kind of irrelevant anyway? What if things are predetermined, what then? Do we just stop trying because the outcome is already decided? Are our limitations so significant that we we're doomed to just endlessly repeat the same mistakes as our parents, and their parents, and all our ancestors stretching back through antiquity? Are we just actors on a stage, forever playing out the same tired roles? That whole line of thinking is a prison. It's mental slavery, it's defeatism. Walk that path and you'll find no answers, only comfortable fairy tales about mystical forces guiding helpless people through their troubles. To believe in fate is impotence.

I am a living, breathing, sentient human being and I am free to interact with my environment and affect change within it. I possess self-awareness, and that awareness allows me to recognize the limitations of human behavior and rise above them. I am not helpless, I am empowered. I am not repeating the mistakes my parents made, I am learning from them. Because of those lessons, I'm not only growing on a personal level, but I am also part of the living, real-time evolution of our species. By participating in that evolution, we are affecting the biological limitations of our descendants, in the same way that our ancestors affected our limitations. The bottom line is simple: Our decisions matter, our legacies are real, and the future belongs to us, not us to it.

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