We’ve always wrestled with the question whether everything that happens to us is part of a destiny that’s set in stone or is it an accident and is just someone being in the right place at the right time. The movie Forrest Gump opens and closes with a white feather floating through the air. In the opening scene, it floats from the clouds, swirling and spinning and comes to rest at Forrest’s feet and he puts it in a book in his suitcase. Never mentioned again, at the end of the movie, the same feather flies out of the book and catches a breeze and gently flies up into the air and continues its journey, towards its destiny. Forrest never knows where his life will take him next, but just like the feather, he goes with the flow and he finds happiness at all stops along the way because that is what his mother taught him to do. Much like a feather, while we are blown randomly about by the wind, we always have a choice in the way we respond to what life hands us, and like Forrest, we can always make the best of any situation. So, is life determined by fate or chance? Some believe its fate; others believe its chance. Like Forrest, many believe it’s both. Next time you’re sitting on a bench and a feather floats by and rests near you, will you pick it up?
