In this post I will try to connect many topics. The ridiculed "secret" rule, which says that it is enough to think of something to make it happen. The religions' idea that says that God knows our future. The "destiny" concept that says that the future is already decided. The topics about psychology and subconsciousness. The Steve Job's speech about connecting the dots. And finally the small secret of mine that I have been using during my university years: I developed an attitude of deciding on a direction for my life and next trying to keep very alert to the signs that would take me into this direction (inspired by what was said by a priest actually).
All the topics I mentioned up to my small secret are just different (more or less successful) attempts at explaining the very same phenomenon - a phenomenon which is indeed true: nothing happens without a reason. One day it just occurred to me and was so obvious: our brains are physical entities that work mechanically in deterministic ways. We may want to believe that it is different, but in the end if a set of cells has worked in certain way in the past, it will work in the same way in the future.
How often it happens that we say "oh this is so typical of him". Yes people often behave predictably, yet they are equally often not aware of it, while the people around are. How often can we literally tell what our friend will do and how it will end up, while they seem to be totally unaware of it, and not even able to listen when we try to warn them. What makes us think that we are ourselves not subject to this phenomenon? Of course we are. What if everything, but literally everything we will ever do will have been easy to be predicted? The place where I live in right now, the job I have, the people I have met - it is not a coincidence. My subconsciousness has been fine-tuning my life in order to take me to the place where I am now.
So does it mean that we have literally no influence on our lives? Yes we do. What matters is the will. It is as easy, or maybe as difficult as to make a decision. Commit to a direction. This is the real moment that gives shape to our lives. And too often we make those decisions, or avoid making any decision without being aware of what we are doing. I am not talking about bullshit decisions like "I quit smoking today.. or maybe tomorrow". I'm talking about the deep shit here. I am talking about the internal decision that almost feels like an inspiration. I am talking about decision that will make us do the impossible. I am talking about decision that has no room for hesitation. Such decision cannot come from the outside, it only comes from inside. And of course numbing and distracting oneself does not help in arriving at any useful one.
I read in one short publication about BPD that claimed something quite controversial: that the key to recovering from borderline is to decide that one wants to recover. It sounds so ridiculous that my first reaction was indeed "wtf". But when I thought deeper about it - yes, this is precisely what was very difficult for me to do. I wanted to be the victim, I wanted to have a reason for feeling bad, I wanted to keep on waiting for someone's remorse. Guess what, this will never happen. It is about taking responsibility for my pain. It is about having the courage to decide that I want to get better. Very simple to name yet very difficult to do.