Do you believe in fate or destiny? Do you believe that the world has some grand plan or all of what will happen is written in some book somewhere?  Do you believe that something is turning the cogs in the great machine of life, or do you perhaps we are all here by chance and change alone.

I can’t refute fate, it is something that I fight against frequently.  What is my fate and how does that reflect on the world. Does fate exist or does this grand narrative fall short because it’s what I want from the universe? That’s not what I want to talk about now. I want to speak of the fate that connects me unknowingly to those who are around me.

I have been fortunate to have great people surrounding me in my life.  Friends, family, peers, and acquaintances.  I have had the chance to develop relationships with people from all different backgrounds, creeds, cultures, nationalities, and ideologies. Each one is connecting to my personal story, each one helping to shape the narrative of my life.

Each chapter is filled with different interconnected strings, ones that may go off in strange directions but is all connected to me in some way. We are all an odd mix of connections for whom we are the catalyst. As my relationships grow so does the strength of the string, and eventually I find myself covered with them, which keeps me warm when the world is cold.

It’s the thread that I feel pulls me towards people in my life.  It connects me to them, sometimes by the hand, and other times by the heart.  These interconnected threads weave together the pages of my book of life, creating a coherent message from start to finish.

The threads always are pushing me to expand myself into a different area, and I wonder why these threads pull me from one place to another.  Each place I go I find out some more about the world, about others, and about myself.  This is what makes my relationships always worthwhile. Are these strings the ones I create or was the thread pulling me there beforehand. Was my book already written in or are these chapters something of my creation? What matters is that I have these relationships and I don’t take them for granted. Each one is important, and I should treat them as such.

Truth be told, everyone has these relationships in their lives, for better or for worse. Where would we be without them? I wanted to take this first week of December to highlight something I find much more valuable than any present in the world, my relationships.  Thank you for existing, each and every friendship and a familial relation have shaped me in some way, so you are all partially responsible for why I am the way I am. If that’s a good thing, thank you. If you feel it’s a bad thing, then it’s all your fault.

I want to continue to work at my relationships into the future, but I do need help, I am not perfect. I am always happy to talk with you, so feel free to reach out to me and remember in this holiday season how much these relationships mean to you.  Letting people know can make all the difference.