“Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free-will.”—Jawaharlal Nehru The personality, physical and mental which you are born with, and the environment, your familial, cultural and financial, you are born into, make up your fate.
This is your initial deposit in the account of your life. A person is defined by the choices he makes on a day-today basis and by the actions he takes in response to the stimuli of the world around him.
Essentially, an individual is determined by the degree to which he exercises his own freewill. There is a stillness and permanence about the past; it changes not and has a solidity, like a statue cast in bronze or marble. The present is the product of the past. The past has determined the present. And the future is the productto-be of the present.
The great philosopher-poet Sri Aurobindo has a beautiful phrase for....
