Are fate and destiny the same thing? I went to check on the net for its meaning. It is actually quite similar. Some people said that we are in control of our lives, but others said that destiny or fate controls our lives. How true are these sayings? I am not sure. However, I do believe that certain things in life can be controlled, and the rest are uncontrollable. Can we really control to change the things in our lives? Are things in our lifetimes fixed? There is a Chinese saying which said: Our deaths are fixed before the day we are even born. Is this really true? I am not sure as well. I do believe in one thing that is the people we meet in our lives are kind of destined. Take an issue for example to see whether life is destined. My sister has very good poly results, and she applied for NUS, NTU and SMU. Of these 3 universities, she preferred going to NUS if she was given the course of her choice. She had chosen business for all three universities. NUS gave her computer engineering, NTU gave her psychology and SMU gave her business. She tried appealing for the business courses in NUS and NTU. But both universities rejected her. In the end, she accepted SMU's offer. So is this destined? To me, it is kind of destined and it seems like things that are destined can't be changed. I read a book by Dr Brian Weiss, a psychiatrist who accidentally knew where souls go after they have died, and souls do reincarnate. In his books that I had read, certain things in life are destined and this is especially true for soul mates. But even if our lives are destined, there are roads for us to choose from. So this means that throughout our lifetimes we can make certain choices in life and each choices made will bring us to a different path. If we feel that we had made a mistake in our choice, we could correct it by taking a spilt road out of the main road to another main road. I think our lives are about choices we make, and destiny do somewhat play a role in our lives.