Free Will
The philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche posited a thought experiment.
The experiment is called Eternal Recurrence, where you should imagine that the universe is infinitely recurring, and that your life will play out, exactly the same, over and over again, to infinity.
Building on this idea, we can use the current theories of the origin and demise of the universe to show a way that this recurring universe may play out.
13.4 Billion years ago, all of the matter in the universe exploded from a single, infinitely small & infinitely dense point. Then all matter exploded outwards, gradually coalescing into stars and galaxies, giving rise to life and consciousness. As the universe plays out, entropy inevitably draws all energy and matter towards cold oblivion, the heat death of the universe. Over eons matter devolves into radiation and dust, and this is when gravity plays it's cards, pulling everything back together once more, bringing every atom down into a single, infinitely small & infinitely dense point. And then... BOOM, it restarts.
Everything happens exactly the same, you reading these words happens again, your childhood happens again, your whole life.
But if this is the case, and your life has already been played out an infinite amount of times, destined to play out another infinity times, do you really do anything of your own choice?
Are you trapped to your fate, no matter what it is?
Do you love your fate enough to be excited to live your life again?
Or do you dread it?
AMOR FATI - The Love of Fate
So if you can't change your fate, you might as well enjoy it right?
You might enjoy that you get to live all the highs and lows, and the experience you get and the people you meet, over and over again.
You might even enjoy the moments you struggle, the times of adversity and hardship.
Even if you are predestined to make the choices you make today, wouldn't you still rather make those choices, the best choices possible?, So that you can make the life you will play out forever, be as good as it can possibly be?
Shouldn’t you appreciate that you get to play a part, any part, on this cosmic scene?
That even for just a blip you get to live your life and you get to learn and experience all that this universe has to offer you?
I think that a life you can be proud of, and a life you can be excited to live, will be the best way that you can love your fate, and appreciate waking up each morning.
Your existence may be limited to the human experience, but you can try to maximise it by making the best decisions.
On Making the Best Decisions
One of my favorite quotes is "you did the best you could with the information you had at time" .
Making sure we make our fate as good as possible means making the things that drive our whole lives - our decisions - as good as possible.
In order to make the best decisions, we much use the information which we are given to make them, our observations, and our use of rational faculties. And because our fate will play out the same no matter what, we can rest easy in the knowledge that whichever decision we end up making, will automatically be the right one. We shouldn't need to be up all night in order to make the best decision, we should work with the information we have and know that if it doesn't work out like you hope, you did the best you could.
The best choice is based on what you think the best choice is, what you think the best course of action should be. Depending on your goals, and your personal definitions of good or bad, right or wrong.
It is key to not feel guilt or shame when something doesn't go as expected, just focus on what you can control about the situation, and do the best you can, and you will never have any reason to feel bad about the outcome.