We fight what life throws at us, convinced we can control the outcome. Seneca warned us 2,000 years ago that control is an illusion and resisting destiny has a price.
Here's poet Dana Gioia:
"Seneca says: if you follow your destiny, it guides you. If you resist it, it drags you behind it. I think most people run the risk of having a life of regret, in which destiny drags them behind it."
"So many gifted people have unhappy or unfulfilled lives, and they compensate in a very sane and sensible way with other pleasures. But there's a sense of the unlived life."
"Some people have it for romance. But most people, you find somebody who's right for you eventually, and you make a family, and that's really good. But it's not enough for somebody of large appetites, large ambitions."
"This was the bargain I was making with fate. I did it, and it took a price. You don't get anything for free."
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