What is fate?

How your success comes from equal part luck, a good social environment, and hard work.

Posted on: 2026-01-01

On this January 1st, I thought it would be a great time to reflect on fate, and how religion seems to have become a bigger part of the world in 2025 after declining in recent years. Whether it's the eastern practice of going to a shrine or temple on the first day of the year, or simply asking whichever deity you believe in to have good fate in the coming year, there are many practices around the world, most of which surround asking a deity for good fortune. But what exactly is fate?

To be clear, I don't want to minimize these practices. I find some of these ceremonies, especially the Japanese ceremony of Hatsumode, to be very fascinating. I understand that the spirituality of these events in itself can be useful for people who practice them, regardless of whether I personally believe in those particular deities or not. But I think it's important to also understand what is, and isn't, within our own power. Too often in the past year I've heard people, even politicians, refer to things as the will of God, or being in His hand, as an excuse for not doing anything.

The first part of what makes someone's good tidings is doing your own hard work. Here, I mean anything that is within your control to increase your chances of success. If you want a better job, you can go back to school, get a better education, more certifications, improve your skills, work on your CV, apply to more jobs. If you want to lose weight, you can try and control your diet, do more exercise, avoid fast food restaurants. If you're looking for love, putting yourself out there increases your chances, as opposed to waiting at home for a miracle to happen.

But hard work is only part of the recipe. Your social environment also plays a major part. It's undeniable that someone born in the west, in a democratic country, from a well-off family who can pay for college studies, has a better path in life than someone born in a poor country, in a village far from any city center, without electricity or Internet access. Family and upbringing also plays a large part in your fate in life. Someone born from a loving family, who teaches them good life lessons, is immensely more likely to succeed than someone from an abusing family.

And finally, the third part of what makes someone's fortune is lady luck, which can also be attributed to God, or any deity worshiped around the world. This is the part that will affect your fate regardless of anything you or those around you can do for you. If you step outside and decide to walk on the left sidewalk, you may fall into a massive hole and break your bones. If you had walked on the right sidewalk, you would have been perfectly fine. Nothing you do could have prepared you for that, and the hole cares not about your wealth or power. If you start a business and sell a product that just happens to become popular worldwide, you could become a multi-millionaire. The exact same person, doing the same steps 10 years earlier, may be too early and see no sale at all, ending up bankrupt. Luck is inherently unfair, yet it's an undeniable characteristic of what makes someone's good fortune or not.

Luck, your social environment, and hard work. Those are the 3 keys to success. It's fun to partake in things like tarot readings, good fortune charms, and other similar ceremonies, but at the end of the day, I believe our fate is grounded into these 3 realities. Anyways, I just felt like writing my thoughts on the matter. For the rest, I wish you all good fortune in 2026, and happy new year!