Decisions Decide Destiny Quotes

For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision and carry it through. This virtue, like most virtues, is ambiguity itself. People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all—a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named—but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not. This is certainly what my decision, made so long ago in Joey’s bed, came to. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well—by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion.

But he was able to understand one thing: making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that wil carry him into places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision." - The Alchemist, Paulo Cohelo -

What if I decide my destiny is someone else?' 'Then that's your decision and I would respect that. Also I know a whole lot of gods to smite whoever it is you choose instead of me.' 'You-' 'Kidding! Totally kidding. Mostly kidding. Okay, not really kidding

Decision decides destiny. What God wants you to become is the positive person you decide to become when led by God's spirit.

It takes your knowing to decide on your going. If you know where you are going, you will keep going because you have already seen yourself gone

You have to choose your path. You have to decide what you wish to do. You are the only person that can determine your destiny.

It is a bit of a cliché to characterize life as a rambling journey on which we can alter our course at any given time--by the slightest turn of the wheel, the wisdom goes, we influence the chain of events and thus recast our destiny with new cohorts, circumstances, and discoveries. But for the most of us, life is nothing like that. Instead, we have a few brief periods when we are offered a handful of discrete options. Do I take this job or that job? In Chicago or New York? Do I join this circle of friends or that one, and with whom do I go home at the end of the night? And does one make time for children now? Or later? Or later still? In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions--we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made shape our lives for decades to come.

Only when it is seen that what decides each individual's destiny is whether or not God decides to save him from his sins, and that this is a decision that God need not make in any individual case, can one begin to grasp the biblical view of grace.

What you choose today will determine who you are tomorrow.

Frightening, isn't it? That something I decide today impacts future generations. Beyond my own flesh and blood.

We did live in dire poverty. And one of the things that I hated was poverty. Some people hate spiders. Some people hate snakes. I hated poverty. I couldn't stand it. My mother couldn't stand the fact that we were doing poorly in school, and she prayed and she asked God to give her wisdom. What could she do to get her young sons to understand the importance of developing their minds so that they control their own lives? God gave her the wisdom. At least in her opinion. My brother and I didn't think it was that wise. Turn off the TV, let us watch only two or three TV programs during the week. And with all that spare time read two books a piece from the Detroit Public Libraries and submit to her written book reports, which she couldn't read but we didn't know that. I just hated this. My friends were out having a good time. Her friends would criticize her. My mother didn't care. But after a while I actually began to enjoy reading those books. Because we were very poor, but between the covers of those books I could go anywhere. I could be anybody. I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. And as I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that the person who has the most to do with you, and what happens to you in life, is you. You make decisions. You decide how much energy you want to put behind that decision. And I came to understand that I had control of my own destiny. And at that point I didn't hate poverty anymore, because I knew it was only temporary. I knew I could change that. It was incredibly liberating for me. Made all the difference.

The idea is that you don't only have one destiny. Younger and younger, kids are pressed to decide what they want to do with their lives, as if everything hinges on one decision. But whichever direction you go there are going to be upsides and downsides. You're dealing with a set of trade-offs, and not one course in comparison to which all the others are crap.....There are varying advantages and disadvantages to each competing future. But I didn't want to have one bad and one good. In both, everything is all right, really. Everything is all right.

Life is what you make of it. You have to decide what you want in life.

Making a true decision, unlike saying, “I’d like to quit smoking,” is cutting off any other possibility. In fact, the word “decision” comes from the Latin roots de, which means “from,” and caedere, which means “to cut.” Making a true decision means committing to achieving a result, and then cutting yourself off from any other possibility. When you truly decide you’ll never smoke cigarettes again, that’s it. It’s over! You no longer even consider the possibility of smoking.

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception. Their decisions are not really decisions at all— a real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things than can be named— but elaborate systems of evasion, of illusion, designed to make themselves and the world appear to be what they and the world are not….. I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well— by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion.

It was my decision, it always has been. I decide my own destiny. I can be guided towards it but in the end the decision is mine alone.

Decision is the wing that makes dreams to go and grow and flow and fly. No decision, no fulfilled destiny!

Define your own path in life.

Your condition does not determine your life history. It’s your decision in that condition that tells more about your destiny. Decide not to see the available as the preferable!

Everyone ought to decide his or her own fate.

But one thing I learned from the Saints, when the crossroads are open t you, you must decide a path. I will not stand still while the world makes my choices.

You didn't decide it yourself. I allowed you to make that decision.

To change the decision of the decision maker in our favor, create a doubt in the messenger's mind, a small doubt raised by own people is bigger than real facts presented by outsiders.

It’s one of them. Your life can have many destinies. It’s all in what you choose. Each decision you make takes you down a different path. It’s up to you to decide which path is more fulfilling.

You are today where your decisions have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your decisions will take you. If you really want to know who you are now, take a tour about the decisions you made some years back.

Now it's serious. At last it's becoming serious. So I've grown older. Was I the only one who wasn't serious? Is it our times that are not serious? I was never lonely neither when I was alone, nor with others. But I would have liked to be alone at last. Loneliness means I'm finally whole. Now I can say it as tonight, I'm at last alone. I must put an end to coincidence. The new moon of decision. I don't know if there's destiny but there's a decision. Decide! We are now the times. Not only the whole town - the whole world is taking part in our decision. We two are now more than us two. We incarnate something. We're representing the people now. And the whole place is full of those who are dreaming the same dream. We are deciding everyone's game. I am ready. Now it's your turn. You hold the game in your hand. Now or never. You need me. You will need me. There's no greater story than ours, that of man and woman. It will be a story of giants... invisible... transposable... a story of new ancestors. Look. My eyes. They are the picture of necessity, of the future of everyone in the place. Last night I dreamt of a stranger... of my man. Only with him could I be alone, open up to him, wholly open, wholly for him. Welcome him wholly into me. Surround him with the labyrinth of shared happiness. I know... it's you.

My paintings are the result of countless small brushstrokes, each one shaded with a different blend of colors, each one with a single, deliberate purpose. Every moment, every day, we are all making something - whether it's science or art, a relationship or a destiny - building it choice by choice, moment by moment. Our decisions shape other people's worlds as well as our own. We are all the center of our own universe and all of use in someone else's orbit. It's a paradox, but sometimes paradoxes are where truth begins. My father would point out that the Beatles told us all of this decades ago. They one sang that in the end, the love we take is equal to the love we make. No, we can never be in complete control of our fates - we're all vulnerable to accidents, to cruelty, and to the random misfortune of life. But I try to think about how much of it is up to us. We decide what emotions serve as our building blocks, which feelings we'll use to shape our universe.

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.

You don’t get to decide what you’re worth because you obviously don’t know. You don’t get to decide that anymore because you have no fucking idea that you’re worth everything. What do you think this is? A joke? A decision I made for the hell of it? It’s not. It’s not destiny, Ox. You’re not bound by this. Not yet. There’s a choice. There is always a choice. My wolf chose you. I chose you. And if you don’t choose me, then that’s your choice and I will walk out of here knowing you got to choose your own path. But I swear to god, if you choose me, I will make sure that you know the weight of your worth every day for the rest of our lives because that’s what this is. I am going to be a fucking Alpha one day, and there is no one I’d rather have by my side than you. It’s you, Ox. For me, it’s always been you.” So I said, “Okay, Joe.” I looked up at him. His wolf was close to the surface. And he said, “Okay?” I said, “Okay. Okay. I don’t know if I see the things you do.” “I know.” “And I don’t know if I’ll be good enough.” “I know you will,” he said, eyes flashing orange. “But I promised you. I said it will always be you and me.” His face stuttered a bit, and he said, “You did. You promised me. You promised.

We can view politics as an art form, since political action shapes human beings destiny to be an ambassador of goodwill and humanitarian activities. Alternatively, we can perceive politics as a crime because it can give vent to collective passions of hatred and barbarism. Americans must decide whether to muster our collective political powers to end warfare and curb corporate exploitation of natural resources or pursue nationalism and perpetuate barbarous ruination of the environment. The outcome of these decisive challenges will alter our national consciousness.

I must talk to Kennit first. He will tell me when he is ready for us to have a baby." "Never," Bolt said flatly. "What?" "Never wait for a male on any such decision. You are the queen. You decide. Males are not made for such decisions. I have seen it time and time again. They would have you wait for days of sunshine and wealth and plenty. Yet to a male, enough is never sufficient, and plenty never reached. A queen knows that when times are hardest and game most scarce, that is when one must care most about the continuance of the race. Some things are not for males to decide.

I had all kinds of answers ready for the commissions that called me in and asked me what had made me become a Communist, but what had attracted me to the movement more than anything, dazzled me, was the feeling (real or apparent) of standing near the wheel of history. For in those days we actually did decide the fate of men and events, especially at the universities; in those early years there were very few Communists on the faculty, and the Communists in the student body ran the universities almost single-handed, making decisions on academic staffing, teaching reform, and the curriculum. The intoxication we experienced is commonly known as the intoxication of power, but (with a bit of good will) I could choose less severe words: we were bewitched by history; we were drunk with the thought of jumping on its back and feeling it beneath us; admittedly, in most cases the result was an ugly lust for power, but (as all human affairs are ambiguous) there was still (and especially, perhaps, in us, the young), an altogether idealistic illusion that we were inaugurating a human era in which man (all men) would be neither outside history, nor under the heel of history, but would create and direct it.

DURING MY childhood and youth, I saw my mother as a victim, and decided early on that I didn’t want to follow in her footsteps. I was a feminist long before I’d heard the word; my need to be independent and not to be controlled by anyone is so old that I can’t remember a single moment when it didn’t guide my decisions. When I look back at the past, I realize that my mother was dealt a difficult destiny and in fact confronted it with great bravery, but at the time I judged her as being weak because she was dependent on the men around her, like her father and her brother Pablo, who controlled the money and gave the orders.

Shut up!” he cried. “You know what? No. You don’t get to decide what you’re worth because you obviously don’t know. You don’t get to decide that anymore because you have no fucking idea that you’re worth everything. What do you think this is? A joke? A decision I made just for the hell of it? It’s not. It’s not destiny, Ox. You’re not bound by this. Not yet. There’s a choice. There is always a choice. My wolf chose you. I chose you. And if you don’t choose me, then that’s your choice and I will walk out of here knowing you got to choose your own path. But I swear to god, if you choose me, I will make sure that you know the weight of your worth every day for the rest of our lives because that’s what this is. I am going to be a fucking Alpha one day, and there is no one I’d rather have by my side than you. It’s you, Ox. For me, it’s always been you.

At Starfleet Academy, there is a simulated test for trainee crews called the Kobayashi Maru, named after a ship marooned in the Klingon Neutral Zone. Your job is to decide whether to try and rescue it, thereby risking war with the Klingons, or sacrifice it to collateral damage. It’s a purpose-built no-win situation designed to show that sometimes decisions needing to be made don’t necessarily have a clear-cut right and wrong road, a best course of action and a worst course of action. Some things you can’t win –it’s how you don’t win that counts. If you’re going to not win, then do it with style, integrity and aplomb. Not with misery, depression and defeat. Not by cheating the system the way Kirk did –by surreptitiously reprogramming the simulator so that it was possible to rescue the freighter. The irony is, he was awarded a commendation, for ‘original thinking’. The Kobayashi Maru wasn’t one for fancy semantic solutions. Nor was it for cheating on; that defeated the lesson to be learned. It was to prove a point. That you can’t win ’em all, champ.

At the reception given by Jinnah on 14 August 1947 when Asghar Khan and Lt Col (later Maj. Gen.) Akbar Khan met Jinnah, Khan told Jinnah that they were disappointed that the higher posts in the armed forces had been given to British officers who still controlled their destiny. According to Asghar Khan, ‘the Quaid who had been listening patiently raised his finger and said, “Never forget that you are the servants of the state. You do not make policy. It is we, the people’s representatives, who decide how the country is to be run. Your job is only to obey the decision of your civilian masters.”’4 Could any politician have the temerity to say this to the army chief today? The answer has to be a resounding no. Hence, democratic governance in Pakistan instead of being a tripod of the executive, legislature and judiciary looks more like a garden umbrella in which the army is the central pole around which the other organs of the state revolve. Consequently, civilian governments in Pakistan have neither defined national security objectives nor developed strategies to implement them.

Marion: Now it's serious. At last it's becoming serious. So I've grown older. Was I the only one who wasn't serious? Is it our times that are not serious? I was never lonely neither when I was alone, nor with others. But I would have liked to be alone at last. Loneliness means I'm finally whole. Now I can say it as tonight, I'm at last alone. I must put an end to coincidence. The new moon of decision. I don't know if there's destiny but there's a decision. Decide! We are now the times. Not only the whole town - the whole world is taking part in our decision. We two are now more than us two. We incarnate something. We're representing the people now. And the whole place is full of those who are dreaming the same dream. We are deciding everyone's game. I am ready. Now it's your turn. You hold the game in your hand. Now or never. You need me. You will need me. There's no greater story than ours, that of man and woman. It will be a story of giants... invisible... transposable... a story of new ancestors. Look. My eyes. They are the picture of necessity, of the future of everyone in the place. Last night I dreamt of a stranger... of my man. Only with him could I be alone, open up to him, wholly open, wholly for him. Welcome him wholly into me. Surround him with the labyrinth of shared happiness. I know... it's you.

Every time you sit down to eat, you are making a life-changing decision. You are deciding how well you want to live. You are deciding how long you want to live. And you are deciding how good you want to feel, today and for the rest of your life. In fact, every time you even look at a piece of food, you are gazing at the destiny of your health.

Seek opportunities to improve upon yourself. It is only you who can decided what you want to be.

I know I am incapable of courage unless I have decided to give my life. Without that choice, there is nothing but flight. But you take such a decision on the spur of the moment and you cannot make it last for weeks and months. The mental effort is too great. Hence the rarity of true courage. We generally accept a kind of lame compromise between the destiny and the man, which reason rejects.

Beauty and the Beast” embraces one last important moral truth: a person’s decisions in life will define what kind of person she becomes. In this sense also our destinies are not fated: we decide our own destinies.

Decide your destiny.

If you don't make a choice, life makes it for you and then you're stuck with what it decides. Take control of your destiny so that doesn't happen

Your decisions will determine your destination. “No decision” is the decision to be just how you were at where you had been.

Choices can help create the human desire for their future. But there are some, who's fate has already been decided.

Let each person decide his or her fate.

Our adversaries are fighting to prevent people from having agency over their own lives. They are fighting to have autocrats and ideologies make decisions for us. They are fighting to dismantle the infrastructure of truth. They are fighting to undermine the idea that human beings can be moved by fact and reason. They are fighting for relativism, the idea that no idea is worth fighting for. When I was in government, I felt my job was to help people here and around the world determine their own destiny. At the heart of that fight was the idea that people could use information - factual information - to decide what was best for them. That idea is still worth fighting for.

The statement that the essence of the human being consists in being-inthe-world likewise contains no decision aboutwhether the human being in a theologico-metaphysical sense is merely a this-worldly or an other-worldly Creature. 115th the existential determination of the essence of the human being, therefore, nothing is decided about the "existence of God" or his "nonbeing," no more than about the possibility or impossibility of gods. Thus it is not only rash hut also an error in procedure to maintain that the interpretation of the essence of the human being from the relation of his essence to the mth of being is atheism. And what is more, this arbitrary classification betrays a lack of careful reading. No one bothers to notice that in my essay "On the Essence of Ground" (1929) the following appears (,,, 2~, note I): "Through the ontological interpretation of Dasein as beingin-the-world no decision, whether positive or neptive, is made concerning a possible being toward God. It is, however, the case that through an illumi- .,tion of transcendence we first achieve nn adeqrcnte concept of Dnsein, with respect to which it can now he asked how the relationship of Dasein to God is ontologically ordered." If we think about this remark too quickly, as is usually the case, we will declare that such a philosophy does not decide either for or against the existence of God. It remains stalled in indifference. ~hus it is unconcerned with the religious question. Such indifferentism falls prey to nihilism. Rut does the foregoing observation teach indifferentism? Why then are particular words in the note italicized - and not just random ones? For no other reason than to indicate that the thinking that thinks from the question concerning the uuth of being questions more primordially than metaphysics can. Only from the truthofbeing can the essence of the holy he thought. [I~z] Only from the essence of the holy is the essence of divinity to he thought. Only in the light of the essence of divinity can it be thought or said what the word "God" is to signify. Or should we not first be able to hear and understand all these words carefully if we are to be permirted as human beings, that is, as eksistent creatures, to experience a relation of God to human beings? How can the human being at the present stage of world history ask at all seriously and rigorously whether the god nears or withdraws, when he has above all neglected to think into the dimension in which alone that question can be asked? But this is the dimension of the holy, which indeed remains closed as a dimension if the open region of being is not cleared and in its clearing is near to humans. Perhaps what is distinctive about this world-epoch consists in the closure of the dimension of the hale [des Heilen]. Perhaps that is the sole malignancy [Unheil]. But with this reference the thinking that points toward the truth of I)eing as what is to be thought has in no way decided in favor of theism. It can he theistic as little as atheistic. Not, however, because of an indifferent attitude, hutoutofrespect forthe boundaries that have heen set forthinking as such, indeed set by what gives itself to thinking as what is to be thought, 1)). the truth of being. Insofar as thinking limits itself to its task it tlirects the human being at the present moment of the world's destiny into the primordial dimension of his historical abode.

It is a bit of a cliché to characterize life as a rambling journey on which we can alter our course at any given time—by the slightest turn of the wheel, the wisdom goes, we influence the chain of events and thus recast our destiny with new cohorts, circumstances, and discoveries. But for the most of us, life is nothing like that. Instead, we have a few brief periods when we are offered a handful of discrete options. Do I take this job or that job? In Chicago or New York? Do I join this circle of friends or that one, and with whom do I go home at the end of the night? And does one make time for children now? Or later? Or later still? In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come. — Maybe that sounds bleaker than I intended. — Life doesn’t have to provide you any options at all.

Remember, a real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.

1. The buck stops here. I am responsible for my past and my future. 2. I will seek wisdom. I will be a servant to others. 3. I am a person of action. I seize this moment. I choose now. 4. I have a decided heart. My destiny is assured. 5. Today I will choose to be happy. I am the possessor of a grateful spirit. 6. I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit. I will forgive myself. 7. I will persist without exception. I am a person of great faith.

When we are called before God and His throne of judgment, it will be too late to reverse our decision. It is during our lifetime here on earth that we decide our eternal destiny.

Prove to yourself that you’ve decided now. Make one or two decisions that you’ve been putting off: one easy decision and one that’s a bit more difficult. Show yourself what you can do. Right now, stop. Make at least one clear-cut decision that you’ve been putting off—take the first action toward fulfilling it—and stick to it! By doing this, you’ll be building that muscle that will give you the will to change your entire life.

The mind is a focusing and decision-making mechanism. We can focus on our spirit and decide to honour the voice of Truth, thus becoming free in the hands of God. Or we can focus on the world and decide to take the path of least resistance, thus becoming puppets in the hands of others. There is no other choice. Both come with a price, but the first brings life and the other brings death.

At least when she was following the prophecy, she didn't have to worry about right or wrong - just what had been foretold. Maybe that's why the Slain God's religion had lasted all this time. No one remembered how to decide for themselves anymore. No one wanted to believe that their mistakes were preventable. If your future was foretold, then you weren't accountable for it. All your decisions and mistakes belonged to a seer's dream, a diviner's runes.

For millennia Ukraine had been the crucible of mighty political conglomerates such as the Scythian, Sarmatian, and Kievan realms. Its inhabitants controlled their own destinies and influenced, sometimes decisively, those of their neighbors. The civilizations that were based in Ukraine stood in the forefront of the cultural and socioeconomic developments in all of Eastern Europe. But after the decline of Galicia-Volhynia, an epochal transformation occurred. Henceforth, Ukrainian lands would no longer form the core of important political entities and, except for a few brief moments of self-assertion, the fate of Ukraine's inhabitants would be decided in far-off capitals such as Warsaw, Moscow, or Vienna.* In cultural and economic terms as well, the status of Ukraine would decline to that of an important but peripheral province whose elites identified with foreign cultures and political systems. No longer dominant but dominated, the natives of Ukraine would have to struggle not only for their political selfdetermination but also for their existence as a separate ethnic and national entity. This effort became - and remains to this day - one of the major themes of Ukrainian history. * During the Polish-Lithuanian period, Ukrainians called themselves Ruthenians (Rusyny), a name derived from Rus'. Belorussians were also called by this name. At this time, Russians were generally called Muscovites.

Whether we choose to confront our fears or retreat in the face of them, we are always in control of our destiny. Life is whatever you make it - bold and brave or timid and small. So make your choices count, decide which path to take, and let courage be your compass as you take each step.

Life is all about the decisions we make and the habits we keep. Don't be fooled into thinking that your future is decided by someone else - you have control over your destiny.

It is a bit of a cliché to characterize life as a rambling journey on which we can alter our course at any given time—by the slightest turn of the wheel, the wisdom goes, we influence the chain of events and thus recast our destiny with new cohorts, circumstances, and discoveries. But for the most of us, life is nothing like that. Instead, we have a few brief periods when we are offered a handful of discrete options. Do I take this job or that job? In Chicago or New York? Do I join this circle of friends or that one, and with whom do I go home at the end of the night? And does one make time for children now? Or later? Or later still? In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come. —

By destiny I mean the unique purpose God has in mind for my life. It is preconceived by him but ultimately decided by me—by the day-to-day decisions I make

Please allow this book to offer one piece of serious advice (don't worry, this is the only one): Take control. Decide that enough is enough. Stop waiting for your advisor to guide your work - write a paper using your own brain and slap it down on his or her desk. Study - really, actually study - what it is you're studying. Realize that you can't include everything in your thesis, and drop your lofty and unrealistic plan to transform the field. You won't. Plan what you need to do to graduate, write it down, sit with the person whose approval you need, and work up a timeline. Seek out interesting conferences, and if your department won't pay for you to attend them, search for outside sponsorship. (You have the freaking internet, for crying out loud.) Actively pursue your goals, because - and it's so easy to forget this - that's why you're here. Can't find the motivation to work today? Tough shit. It's like a snow day: Every day off you give yourself makes you feel good that day, but it's one more day you'll have to make up in June when you really want to be out of school. It's possible that many graduate programs want you to get depressed, say "Fuck it" and take charge of your own destiny. They may consider this part of your necessary struggle. Well, so be it. Wait no longer. Take charge now. And get on with your stupid, stupid career.

In the beginning of the ancient world Prometheus stole a glowing ember from the sacred fire of the gods and gave it to all mortals to protect them from the cold of night. But Zeus, the king of the gods, became angry that such a gift had been taken, and in vengeance he decided to balance the blessing of fire with a curse. He ordered Hephaestus to sculpt a woman of exquisite beauty whose destiny was to bring great sorrow upon the human race. She was to be named Pandora. As Hephaestus molded the clay into a stunning female, a primordial evil called the Atrox watched covetously from the shadows. Once she was complete, Hermes took Pandora to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus, and offered her to him, as a present from Zeus. When he saw the beautiful Pandora, Epimetheus forgot his brother's warning not to accept any gifts from the great god, and took her for his bride. For her dowry, the gods had given Pandora a huge, mysterious storage jar, but the Atrox knew what lay inside. At the wedding feast, it shrewdly aroused her curiosity and convinced her to open the lid. And when she did, countless evils flew into the world. Only hope remained inside, a consolation for all the evils that had been set free. But no one saw the demon sent by the Atrox to destroy hope and kidnap Pandora. Selene, the goddess of the Moon, however, finally heard Pandora's cries and stopped the demonic creature. The Atrox studied this defeat and envisioned a way to inflict even greater suffering upon the world. It journeyed to the edge of the night and found the three sister Fates, goddesses older than time, who spun threads that predetermined the course of every life. Once they had agreed to the Atrox's plan, their decision became irrevocable. Even great Zeus could not alter their ruling. Only Selene dared to scorn their decree, and she alone vowed to change destiny.

Tomorrows hinge / on one decision. / In all directions: / consequence. (from Destinations)

I have decided on my destiny; accepted by calling as writing for God.

Make no mistake: Sunday’s referendum will mark a defining moment in Greece’s modern history and a decisive turn for Europe’s neoliberal project. The choice is very clear. Five years after the people of Greece first rose up against the anti-democratic imposition of the Troika’s austerity measures, they have finally been given the chance to decide upon their own destiny: either they will vote yes to a lifetime of austerity within the eurozone, or they will roar back at the creditors’ inhumane demands with a proud and resounding “NO!” — thereby opening the way for a thousand yeses to a new, democratic and socially just Europe, freed from the shackles of debt servitude, the noose of a deflationary single currency, and the tyranny of an unaccountable financial technocracy. The stakes have never been higher.

It is not for you to decide who you will love and trust. Love those who come into your life. Love them for as long as they wish to be there. And then still love them even if they are no longer there. You cannot run out of love or give too much away. You don’t have to decide or arrange anything. Your happiness is already assured.

The logic of hell is nothing other than the logic of human free will, in so far as this is identical with freedom of choice. The theological argument runs as follows: “God, whose being is love, preserves our human freedom, for freedom is the condition of love. Although God’s love goes, and has gone, to the uttermost, plumbing the depth of hell, the possibility remains for each human being of a final rejection of God, and so of eternal life.” Let us gather some arguments against this logic of hell. The first conclusion, it seems to me, is that it is inhumane, for there are not many people who can enjoy free will where their eternal fate in heaven or hell is concerned. Anyone who faces men and women with the choice of heaven or hell, does not merely expect too much of them. It leaves them in a state of uncertainty, because we cannot base the assurance of our salvation on the shaky ground of our own decision. Is the presupposition of this logic of hell perhaps an illusion—the presupposition that it all depends on the human beings’ free will? The logic of hell seems to me not merely inhumane but also extremely atheistic: here the human being in his freedom of choice is his own lord and god. His own will is his heaven—or his hell. God is merely the accessory who puts that will into effect. If I decide for heaven, God must put me there; if I decide for hell, he has to leave me there. If God has to abide by our free decision, then we can do with him what we like. Is that “the love of God?” Free human beings forge their own happiness and are their own executioners. They do not just dispose over their lives here; they decide on their eternal destinies as well. So they have no need of any God at all. After God has perhaps created us free as we are, he leaves us to our fate. Carried to this ultimate conclusion, the logic of hell is secular humanism, as Feuerbach, Marx and Nietzsche already perceived a long time ago. The Christian doctrine of hell is to be found in the gospel of Christ’s descent into hell. In the crucified Christ we see what hell is, because through him it has been overcome. Judgment is not God’s last word. Judgment established in the world the divine righteousness on which the new creation is to be built. But God’s last word is “Behold I make all things new” (Rev 21: 5). From this no one is excluded. Love is God’s compassion with the lost. Transforming grace is God’s punishment for sinners. It is not the right to choose that defines the reality of human freedom. It is the doing of the good.