We may not be the master of our own fate, but we are its chief architect.
From Freedom and Other Responsibilities, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
The wind took the sycamore all afternoon and I spent most of it holding on rather than flying. Years ago I would have called that proof of the old argument, that the weather decides and the bird only complies. But I watched a pair of finches build in the crook of that same tree, in that same wind, choosing the sheltered side of the fork, and the nest was still there at dusk. They did not make the wind and they did not stop it. We may not be the master of our own fate, but we are its chief architect, and the finches drew the plans in a gale they had no vote in. Switch says this is just what anybody does who has to live somewhere.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- Is a tree not free because it has a root growing into the earth?
- Is there a star the heavens can do without?
- If you’re tired of the same old story, you’re not as tired as you think.
- If it wasn’t your first time, it won’t be your last.
- We hold ourselves less accountable for the things we meant to do otherwise.
- What is less cluttered than the night sky, a star here, a planet there, a sliver of moon, and nothing else but all the space in the universe?