do u bel;ee that we really have any control over our lives or is it already planned out for us?

[misdee]

is everything meant to be the way it is? could we really have changed things at a certain point in our lives? are we all in gods hands?

Humans like to believe they have a lot of control over their lives but I think the reality is very different - it's just hard to handle as a concept.

I disagree that "you can't influence that much".

I also disagree about the 'hard concept to handle' bit... arguably having an externalised locus of control (which is I believe is what you are arguing is the reality) is possibly easier, and maybe more comforting, for a large number of people. I think they call it 'God'.

Many people around us, in an ordinary capacity, as well as an exceptional way, use this alleged "inability to influence" to an incredible degree...

I think Rosa Parks (search threads for the last few days) is a great example (admittedly on the extreme end of 'ability to influence'). Oh, and I'd guess she was born poor, had a disadvantaged eduction and didn't really enjoy rich family connections to the whites in power IYSWIM (maybe I'm wrong on all that, but hope you get the point).

I'd agree with the inheritance and family connections essentially being about who you are born to / raised by, but might argue the quality of your education is (at least partially) down to yourself.

If you routinely attempt to be in the right place at the right time, I'd imagine you increased your chances of a given event occuring. If you wanted to make new friends in a new town, you'd be more likely to meet people in a coffee shop / gym / foreign language course than staying at home and counting stamps.

I take your point about folks not trying to be in the right place at the right time, yes, some people seem to be 'lucky' but I'd bet there are other character traits (perhaps discernable by psychological personality testing) which might help explain their 'luck' (for example regular competition winners tend to enter more competitions than other people)...

Message withdrawn

It all depends on your perspective... I went through what I thought were the shittiest four years of my life on my own with 4 kids... yet I have grown so much as a person as a result of that. Wouldn't be the person I am now and have met my 2nd husband if the bad stuff hadn't happened. Was it was meant to happen? Maybe. But my reaction to the circumstances has caused my existing outcome in life.

Anyone seen Back To The Future/Sliding Doors/The Butterfly Effect??

Many many different takes on reality. All down to cause and effect I reckon.

This is an interesting debate. I don't believe in "getting what you deserve" in terms of big life events, because I would have to believe in sins of the father, or reincarnation to feel that I had any role in being born in the circumstances that I was (or anyone else for that matter). But I do think that life is what you make it. Yes there are storms along the way, some of which are just about a combination of coincidences, good and bad (I do root cause analysis as part of my job, so see a lot of "because, this, this and this happened together, the result was that") and some of which are caused by the way we react to things, so for example, I do not feel responsible for my dh having an affair, but I can recognise the series of events that triggered it, and the part I had to play in that. Sometimes it is very difficult to figure out the "why" of things, and sometimes it is probably not even a good idea. However, how we react to things is in our own hands, and I do believe that we should all take responsibility for what we do (even if we know that inherited behaviours may make us likely to react in particular ways).

There is no disgreement on this thread about whether you should try to influence things - everyone agrees that you certainly should. There are somethings that it is within us to be able to influence that no one would deny.

I think the only difference of opinion is in how much really is ouside of our control. Hub2dee thinks things are mainly within our influence, I think they are mainly not.

My evidence includes the circumstances of birth - which IMO have a HUGE impact. Its not likely that a girl born into the Taliban regime would have much influence over her life really - is it?

Do people born rich normally stay rich - I would say that mostly they do.

Can we affect when we die by our actions? Maybe we can adjust some statistics in our favour, but overall the control is not with us.

Did many of us control who we met & married?

So I think that the most significant events in life are outside our control. How we deal with them is more within our control. And is it planned out for us - if you believe in a higher power then yes, if you don't then no - its organic & it just happens.

OK, so we agree we should try and influence things, right ?

But why ? When you suggest all the major stuff is beyond our control ? Why bother doing anything when 'what will be, will be [regardless of what you do]' IYSWIM ?

I think the girl you refer to would have limited choices, opportunities and accepted modes of behaviour because of when and where she was born, yes, but that doesn't imply she is fated to remain in those conditions... for example, let's hypothesise she was adopted by a middle-class liberal family and brought up in New York... I'm sure you'd agree the opportunities presented to her would be substantially different and she would likely go on to lead a rather different life to that which she might have led remaining with her birth parents.

What changed ? Her 'fate' ? Was she 'destined' to be adopted ? Maybe she was just 'lucky' ?

I think there are a fair few people born rich who blow it and a fair few people born broke who make it. Would be interesting to get stats on this !

Re: When we die... I disagree that the control is not with us here again (to a certain degree). I am currently faced with the need to lose a large amount of weight to improve my health. I can choose to stay fat, and possibly suffer heart troubles early, or I can become much healthier (and thus statistically more likely to die older, rather than younger)... What you're saying (I think) is that virtually regardless of my actions, I will swing things only a small amount in my favour, because if I am destined to have a fatal illness / accident in x years time there is not a lot I can do about it...

Today I might go and jump under a bus, but I might just go to work and come home for dinner... ultimately that's my choice, I would assert.

Re: Marriage - again, I would suggest that yes, this is within our control. I chose to court, get engaged, get married to dw. I could have chosen to date other girls, or broken off the engagement, or married my first love or sought a new love to marry...

Are you arguing for cupid and an arrow ? Or that our social class, upbringing etc. determine who we marry ?

Catch you later, twirl, must dash

Can I just say, Hub2Dee, you don't look remotely fat in any of the pictures you have posted. Are you using a body double?

I think much of life it totally random, but I certainly don't think anything is 'predestined' except that we are born with certain abilities and genetic predispositions, but how those appear/work out in our lives is not inevitable.

Thank you aloha... nice slimish face, but the weight is deffo there lower down... I didn't post any 'shocking' pictures, LOL, but believe me there are some.

hi hub2dee

Why should we try to influence things? Because what would be left if we didn't try? That's why. But if we recognise that so much is beyond our control we can stop worshipping false idols - the rich, celebs - and stop judging the poor and unsuccessful.

I agree that you could deliberately choose when you die by suicide - but hardly anyone DOES kill themselves, which substantiates my claim that mainly we do not control the date of our death.

I agree there are a number of people born poor who die rich and vv - but again I say it is a minority, and therefore substantiates my point.

The argument about the girl born to a taliban regime is that if she were subsequently adopted by a New York couple things would change but this adoption would not be controlled by the choices or actions of the girl herself.

Re marriage - did you control your dw to agree to marry you? I am arguing that if you meet the right person at the right time it is largely down to luck!

Re losing weight - we both agree you should do it BTW

Hope you enjoy the evening - but remember if you don't, I would say it's mainly not your fault...

Love Twirl

Just wanted to say, great thread!!!

no we have free will to change the direction of our lives.

also what crazy mtherfking almighty being sat and planned my life? sado masachistic tw*t

LOL custy... maybe s/he was having a larf ?

hi twirl,

Loving our chat btw....

re: why try to influence... "Because what would be left if we didn't try?"... but that's exactly my point, if you assert that one should try and influence, but that it's essentially pointless, it would perhaps be wiser to conserve the energy and go zen. Pursue nothingness. That makes me yawn. (although pursuit of nothingness in certain areas I find intriguing / attractive, the pursuit of doing nothing to simply allow fate to unravel before us I find a most unattractive proposition).

(late, chest infection, should be asleep).

Re: "mainly we do not control the date of our death" [suicide etc.] My point here is that every second of the day we have chosen to be alive is that positive affirmation, that choice to live. We choose it continually. We attempt to make every day a day we won't die in a number of interesting ways (avoiding conflict, balancing up risk and reward, pursuing healthful psychological choics instead of less helpful ones etc.). If you or I wanted to die tomorrow, we could make it happen. I maintain that we do control whether we die at any given moment, except incase of natural disasters, death through (certain) diseases/ old age etc.

(eyes heavy)

re: wealth / 'improving our lot' - I actually see great mobility here, but typically in a gradual movement, generation by generation... I would guess (again stats would be interesting), that most generations build upon the wealth and education of the preceeding to render themselves more educated and probably more wealthy. I'll acknowledge, of course, this isn't always the case, and also that the born rich / die broke (and vice versa) is not necessarily 'common', but I think this 'improvement' in one's situation would probably be born out by further research. (witness phenomena of 'first person in our family to go to uni').

Re: control of dw to marry me... LOL: actually I did control her... proposed to her in a helicopter (tourist trip around the Statue of Liberty), if she'd have declined, I'd have given her a big nudge . You argue that "if you meet the right person at the right time it is largely down to luck" - I'd suggest that people (frequently) tend to attempt to put themselves into situations which favour encounters - whether obvious: doing a round of speed dating, for example, or more subtle - being friendly to those we meet (when we're searching for a mate) lest one of them, say a friend of a friend, were to be compatible. It's not luck, it's 'strategy'

(well, you get my drift.... it's 'influenced' by our attempt to exert control over a given situation / set of events in our favour).

(I am boring myself now)

Re: taliban girl - let's say her guardian gives her a choice: NY or Kabul... she is making a choice.

Re: weight - yeah, we all know we should do it, but will I choose to do it ? I haven't so far. Maybe it's destined that way ??? But what if tomorrow I think 'sod the lard arse', it's healthy eating and exercise time, and then slim down and tone up... have I 'cheated' my fate as a fatty ?

Re: this evening... I'd say it is (nearly) 100% down to you whether you enjoy a given evening. It is a state of mind, an attitude... you can choose to sulk and be moody or you can choose to be up and open... (I acknowledge chemical imbalances which impact mood). If you sit, drop your head, slouch your shoulders, breathe shallowly, dwell on miserable thoughts, chances are you will start to feel down. If you sit up, straight, breathe deeply, focus on achievements, work out plans etc. chances are you would start to feel better... when you see a friend having a sh*t time, you don't just go up to them and go 'yeah. it's crap. You should feel crap. There's not much you can do. Just deal with it (quietly if possible)'... no, you listen to the problem, the pain, the difficult situation, and you reflect on it, to assist the firend to move forward with their reflections / behaviour etc.

(As cheesy but fascinating motivational speaker Tony Robbins says "it is in our moments of decision that our destiny is shaped" (sorry, Tony, it's something like that).

(zzzzz)

Night, twirl.

Good morning hub2dee

Hope you are feeling better...interested to know how much you are responsible for getting this particular virus though...20% (my theory) or 80% (would this be your theory??!)

very interested by all the points in your post...especially the suicide point which I think is a clever one...will post a full answer later on today but must rush out now

love Twirl

Morning to you, too, Twirl.

Actually, not feeling an awful lot better, will attempt to do a minimum of outdoor stuff today, but am committed to potting up an ENORMOUS tree fern into an equally ENORMOUS pot in my garden with a mate. The idea was you would walk under the canopy; its graceful fronds forcing you to duck ever so slightly as you make your way to the back of the garden... the reality as it is now is that the huge 6ft fronds arch elegantly from the trunk but end up just some 3 foot off the ground, across the path which I use everytime I need to go to the shed (which is where I live, like Thoreau). Will be sorted v. soon though which will be fab.

Re: virus - well, I may have inherited a dicky chest / asthma from my fabulous genetic background, but if I never wanted to get a virus, I could choose to live in a bubble, with just a wire snaked in to power my laptop so I could surf MN... or else I could choose to never exert myself much outside when it is cold and wet, to wear a mask on sorties to the supermarket, to not associate with people when they have colds etc... by doing all that I would certainly minimise my chance of developing a cold (subsequent to which I often get my chest infection). I could also pop vitamins or echinacea if I thought that would help...

... but I don't. I try not to get freezing and cold and stay out for too long when the weather is crap, and I won't go and hug cold-ridden friends or family when they are ill, but other than that I'll get on with my life... I've found this gives me the best risk / reward balance if you see what I mean...

Soooooo, to address your % attribution, I feel it necessary to further break down our analysis into contributory variables (we're gonna need nooka, LOL):

I agree I am genetically predisposed to higher incidences of chest infections than 'normal' people... BUT I would guess my current illness is not simply due to an 'expression' of this predisposition... it has been exacerbated / triggered / 'caused' by my behaviour. I would guess

50% behavioural - I've spent a fair bit of time outside when cold and wet doing physical labour, which is stupid

20% behavioural - mixing with sick people - there are colds etc. everywhere at the mo, I could easily have picked up a bug this way.

20% behavioural - I choose not to eat healthily or exercise adequately, this contributes to lesser fitness which means I am less able to fight bugs, or to do the aforementioned physical activity without getting ill IYSWIM.

9.999% behavioural - I choose not to go to the doctor at the first cough, when antibiotics might knock the infection on the head.

0.001% Long Shot - I have avian flu.

-

I wrote the above over one hour ago; I've spent the intervening time sweating like a pig wrestling the tree fern into a pot, into a hole... doubtless this choice, allied to the fact that we're also going to lunch etc. will mean I will be more ill this evening / tomorrow...

Did I have to do the repotting now ? No. It was a choice. It was convenient now because my mate was available. Do I have to go to lunch ? No. I could back out, however it was set up ages ago so....

I am boring myself again.

Enjoy your weekend.

Hi hub2dee

Sounds like your Tarzan morning should have wiped out any excess poundage, especially if it makes you feel worse and you lose your appetite (so you seem to have all that pretty much 100% under your control}

OK...why try to influence? Well both of us agree that we should try but you think our influence is extensive, I think it is small. Although my comment re leaves in the wind may have led you to think otherwise, I don't really think our influence is insignificant either. Maybe 20% of stuff we can influence and 80% we can't is my theory. I vote in general elections, because although I think my influence is small (less than 20%!!!) I think it is important to use it.

Re controlling the date of our death...you say we choose to be alive every second of the day...and therefore we have more overall control as most seconds we chose to continue and only 1 second will we not have the choice to make, the moment of an unwilling death. My only answer to this is that I don't think we do make a postitve active decsion to live and not to end it all each second of the day. I would say this is a very passive sort of decision, if it is a decision at all.

RE Taliban girl...what's the odds on her getting a choice like that? How much can she really control?

Re improving wealth over generations - again it is luck if you are born inot a family who imporved over the previous generation.

RE dw - glad you had that under control

Am interested to know whether you think the rich and successful deserve to be and vv - I think probably 20% of deserving it and 80% luck

Must dash again, off to see The Little Match Girl
Love Twirl

Afternoon Twirl,

The excess poundage lost was equalised with pizza ai funghi (extra garlic, extra olives), so sadly I'm probably quits on that front, and I've just been summonsed for husbandly dinner guest duties tonight, so doubtless I will end the day, as usual a few grammes heavier despite my antics, LOL.

Following on from leaves in the wind... you say your 20% influence is not insignificant, well it is compared to say 80%.

What exactly would you like to influence but say you can't ? (We've had an exchange on marriage and illness... and you touch on the importance of using ones vote, but could you tell me a few things you think you could not influence (ie. list a few biggies in the 80%)... I'd be pleased to attempt to persuade you of your choice in certain of these matters.

Oh, and BTW, if you particularly wanted your vote to have more weight, I would suggest that you do a few hours work for your preferred political party so that they stand an increased chance of securing a greater percentage of the vote in the next election.

Re: Living / Death / Decision... so, if I decide to kill myself tomorrow morning (after dinner tonight, which hopefully won't be as bad as the picture I may have painted - I think I'm going to have veggie sushi ), would we say that was a decision ?

Oh yes, most certainly it would be called a decision; it would debated on MN... why did he do it ? What made him want to ? How did he do it ? etc.

(don't worry everyone, this is conjecture).

What makes that any more of a decision than me thinking tomorrow AM: 'must go and see if Chewbacca (the fantastically hairy tree fern) is still standing in his splendid new pot' ? You say this is passive... possibly it is easier - I am deferring the decision to kill myself, I am embracing a new day (with all its pleasures and challenges), I am looking forward to enjoying all the good bits lined up for the next day, and possibly dreading some of the bad bits... but it's still my decision. If you like, I'll give you 'breathing is a reflex, hence a passive decision' but I fear I cannot allow you to assert that my possible existence tomorrow is not a decision.

Re: Taliban girl - I agree it is highly unlikely, but it is not impossible. There are plenty of oppressed women (in the Taliban or oppressed in other ways within the Western world) who sought to escape their situation (not always successfully, and rarely easily I would guess, but it does happen).

Re: improving wealth over generations - I would guess, statistically, their are trends in improvement in education and health which is why more people are, erm, educated and healthy than, say, 100 years ago.

Aha, you accept I had influence over my choice of spouse then ?

Re: desrving to be rich and successful.... well, firstly I think you need to separate these two, unless you mean specifically 'business success'. I say this because a large number of people aren't wealthy but they have succeeded in their own way....

But returning to your point... do I think they deserve to be ? I would answer this with another question: Do you think poor people who have faced great hardship deserve to have lived the life they led ? Do they deserve it any more than a rich person deserved it ? You would say 20% they deserved it and the rest, by the sound of it, was rather a lot of bad luck (which they had no influence over).

(I'm not sure I've answered your question, but I'm gonna have a kip before dinner).

Laters.

Kip before dinner?

{{{{{{shocked}}}}}}

Are you a parent?

LOL, yes. I have drugged dd with calpol. She is perfectly happy.

Actually, dw had a bath and dd kicked off so I got no sleep. (Ahhhhhhh), but then ! Yay ! dw took dd and I zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oh bliss.

(She is 16 weeks old, more or less sleeping through, but last few nights not great, with a 1AM / 4 AM desire to have a cuddie.

DW just cancelled dinner as dd apparently starving and moody so no veggie sushi here. Oh well).

Are you newish to MN ? We're here . Due to upload another album shortly !

Hi, twirl, if you're around, hope you've recovered from your {shock}

Hope you enjoyed your weekend and that many things occured due to your own efforts as well as the wave of whatever was inevitable.

BTW - I put a new 9-16 week album of dd yesterday.

Hi hub2dee
Are you feeling better now?

The photos are adorable - can't see the newest lot for technical reasons beyond my control
But what a great name and she definitely looks like you - not suprised you might want to claim 100% of the credit for creating her

I have just landed from the whirlwind that is half term. I threw a big halloween party yesterday (still recovering) and have just got back this evening from seeing Nanny McPhee - pronounced "marvellous" by my six year old - and I concur.

Next in my list of significant things I don't think I can influence is the weather .

The idea of you topping yourself after dinner one day and the subsequent debate on mumsnet is very blackly hilarious but I am resting easy as I know there is no way you could go to your grave with a couple of extra pounds - no point in dying young unless you're going to leave a perfect corpse after all . But I still don't think that you are deciding every few minutes not to kill yourself, any more than I think you are making a decision several times a day not to spend the rest of your life dressed as the original Star Wars version of Chewbacca.

Re: do the poor deserve to be poor? I think it is 20% due to decisions made by the individual and 80% due to circumstances beyond their control - and that would hold whether being poor was a state they disliked intensely or whether they embraced it as a state of being...what do you think?

Love, Twirl

PS What did you have for dinner tonight?

hiya !

Yeah, feeling nearly 100%, but tomorrow I'm away from the computer building an allotment. I have about two tonnes of pooh turning up, and some gravelboards to do raised beds, LOL. I'll probably make myself a bit worse, but I'll live, LOL...

See... I'm my own worst enemy... but at least I'm under my control, LOL.

If you can see some of the photos, but not the latest album, just try clearing history / cache / rebooting PC and you might get lucky. Here's a direct link ITH . The new shoes video will work if you have Apple's Quicktime video player installed.

Anyway, this is a great example, if you really, really wanted to sort the PC, you could train / ask someone / view them elsewhere etc. depending on how very keen you are... this is 100% under your control.

Hope your spooky party was scarily fun, and glad lo thought Nanny up to scratch !

I agree 100% you cannot influence the weather. However you can prepare for the current conditions (so your mood / activites are less affected by it), and you can choose to move somewhere that is closer to what you desire (maybe you want a proper snowy winter, or hot dry summers, or more warmth etc...) if this was a big enough 'problem' for you, you'd attempt to 'control' it as best you can IYSWIM.... still exerting a not inconsiderable degree of influence...

(hark at me, I hate the frigging winters here, LOL, but this December I am escaping ! For ages ! Can't wait ! First time in years of saying 'I don't want to be in England for winter').

LOL, was discussing with dw whether best to die fat (ie. having enjoyed too much good food), or slim (ie. in great shape, probably having ate healthily for ages).

I think the point here re: suicide is that one doesn't spend every second of the day actively focussed on the decision to continue life (although, I suspect extremely depressed / suicidal people might). I agree with you on that point... but nonetheless the result of my day has been that I haven't killed myself, so the effect is as if I had made the decision to live IYSWIM.

I think your Chewbacca point is interesting but am too knacked to comment. Might come back to you on this one tomorrow.

Re: Poor - I think possibly the causal attribution for being poor as you present it (bad decision / circs beyond their control) is a red-herring... my point, I believe, is that if a given person was committed to accomplishing certain things in their life (or 'improvement in their lot' IYSWIM), than I think there is a fair chance they could strive towards that and work towards accomplishing it. I'm not pretending it might be easy; I'm only saying that I think it would be possible. I am also not suggesting a 'should' - each to his own... I'm saying it's a 'could'.

Night.

PS - Dinner tonight was a Peshawari naan. That's it. A solitary naan. And I microwaved it, when it specifically advised me not to on the packet, LOL. Oh, the thrill. (Had snacked earlier in the evening, have not begun the shrinking hub healthy eating programme, LOL).