Can you escape your fate?

            In Oedipus the King, Oedipus was informed that it was predicted he would kill his father and marry his mother. He was appalled by his fate and wanted to escape. He left his home not knowing that he wasn’t living with his real parents. Oedipus’s real parents thought Oedipus was dead. They got rid of him when they heard of his prophecy. Oedipus ended up killing his father and marrying his mother without realizing who they were until after the deed was done. Oedipus and his parents both tried to avoid his fate and outsmart the gods but were unable to do it. Question 2 for the Socratic Seminar is “Both Oedipus and Jocasta claim to have outwitted a specific oracle. What are the ironic implications?” Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta, both thought they were escaping Oedipus’s fate as told by the oracle when in reality Jocasta failed when Oedipus was a child and Oedipus ran himself right back into it. He was blinded by his lack of knowledge and truth and put himself into the position he was trying to take himself out of. This story makes fate seem set in stone and unable to be avoided. This is not how I view fate however. I do believe that there is a reason we are all on this earth and that there is something we are meant to do. I do not think that there is only one way our lives will turn out. Whenever something goes wrong people say “It just wasn’t meant to be”, “If it’s supposed to happen, things will work out”, or “Now just wasn’t the right time”, fate is used as a sort of comfort as to why things aren’t going the way we planned them. I do that in my own life as well, especially with relationships. I always think that if I’m meant to be with that person, then things will work out right in the end. I do still believe that I have control as to where my life goes. I had to work hard to be successful. Nothing was just handed to me. In that sense, I do believe fate can be escaped. We have the choice whether we work hard to accomplish what we want for ourselves or to just leave it up to fate to decide where we go. I don’t give fate credit for my grades or getting into the college that I wanted to get into. I did that for myself.