Kismet: Taking Fate in Your Own Hands

 

Language affects our destiny more than we know. Because we use every aspect of language in our daily lives, I present to you a word of  Arabic origin (quisma: portion or lot) that has evolved into the English word kismet, meaning fate or destiny. We like to throw the word around as we joke about kismet in a light-hearted way, but, as always, there is a grain of truth behind the humor.

Some people ask, "What chance do I stand against kismet?" More likely this quip is said in jest, but I'd like to challenge that question and its implied meaning. Don't the decisions we make set the stage for the actions that create our destiny? When you encounter something that seems like it was meant to be, you might feel like it's your kismet in action, but if you'll think about it, you certainly had a hand in it through the choices you made in the first place. Let me give you a simple and harmless but profound example.

Fifteen years ago, my expert gardener husband Patrick and I decided to purchase large bags of bird seed for ten feeders we installed around the garden. A nature lover, he also wanted to support my love of birds. At that time no trees grew in the field behind our house, but all species of south Texas birds, including black bellied whistling ducks and budgies (short for budgerigar--escaped parakeets), swarmed our back garden daily for this new feast. When a family of voles crawled under the fence to get the seed that dropped from the feeders, owls and hawks showed up, too, but that's another story. It wasn't long before birds sitting on our back fence planted "seeds" for nine sugarberry elms, two cedar elms, and two white mulberry trees. The beauty that these trees have added to our garden is nothing short of a great blessing, and yet we fed those birds who sat on the fence and brought the trees to bear. (If you build it, they will come.) Kismet? Perhaps, but it's my kind of destiny, the one I have a hand in guiding.

Today we have a lovely garden with forty rose bushes. Patrick, who grew up in England, had a grandfather who owned a nursery and taught him the art of gardening. When we married, he transformed my American back yard into an English garden, and better still, he taught me everything I know about plants. When I began writing my novel The Good Gardener, I was able to create a believable setting for the main character who turns his life around when he becomes a gardener. Kismet? You bet!

On a larger and more consequential scale, let's bring in Winston Churchill for a more serious example of kismet.

As Prime Minister from 1940-19445, Churchill rallied the British people and led the country from the brink of defeat to victory, but after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, he not only persuaded Franklin Roosevelt to get involved in the war; he planned with him every step of the way until Nazi Germany was defeated. They spent years planning D-Day together. The Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 is considered one of the most important and far-reaching developments of WW II, instrumental in defeating the Axis powers.

Did this important event happen by chance? 

These two leaders contended with both internal and external pressures: a Congress that would not approve engagement, bad weather, a lack of supplies and ships, war with Japan, plans in North Africa and Sicily that didn't produce anticipated results. Despite misfortune, criticism, and naysayers, Roosevelt and Churchill met often and continued to work together, shifting support when necessary and changing plans that might not work for new ones. Both men knew that D-Day couldn't happen until everything seemed to be in alignment. Chance? I urge you to consider my challenge again: Our decisions set the stage for the kismet we want.

 On June 6, 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along the Normandy coast and by the following spring Allied forces had defeated Nazi Germany.

As literature is a reflection of life, I turn to Paulo Coelho's famous fiction story about destiny, The Alchemist. Coelho, also a follower of Jung's theory of synchronicity, wrote, "When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream." He goes on to say through the character of The Alchemist, "...when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too. Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World." The story is the tale of a journey of a young man named Santiago who travels from Andalusia, Spain to the great pyramids of Giza and back before he returns to true love, Fatima. Santiago believes his treasure is gold, but through the wisdom he gains from The Alchemist, he learns about his destiny and what he must do to achieve it. Every decision he makes creates his kismet.

At the beginning of this post, I suggested that language affects our destiny, so I'll close with this idea. The words of kindness that we speak, the words we use about ourselves and others shape the person we will be despite our past experiences and how we have been treated or even how we have struggled. Affirmations change who we are and who we want to be. Kismet? Yes, my kind of destiny, the one I have a hand in guiding.