Destiny, circumstances, marriages

Control your own destiny before it controls you.

- Me, misremembering the more common saying 'Control your own destiny or someone else will'

People like getting married. Some people don't. They don't oppose getting married or 'don't believe in marriage', they'll delay it for as long as they can, for logistical reasons more than anything but it's easy simple you have your freedom and there's no real need to getting married. They'll see people here and there, but generally they'll be unattached going about living their lives to the fullest. Marriage is not a part of their plans, not in the consideration absent from active imagination.

Circumstances change. It could be intensely personal like a loved one's medical emergency, or generally pretty big like a global pandemic where it's not a good idea for more than a dozen people to hang in the same enclosed space. Often it's variables in between, and multiple things at the same time. Their hands are forced.

Sometimes it's as simple as marrying your boyfriend you didn't really plan on getting married too but at this rate there's probably not going to be normal weddings for the next two even three years and by that time you'll be a little too old for your own comfort. And you've got a guy around you anyway sure he's not what you imagined of your life partner but he will do. You can live with him tolerate him and know how to handle him. You could do better but you could do a lot worse. People frequently make much worse decisions. He's fine and marriage will only strengthen your bond. He knows all of this without you telling because he's thinking the same things. So are his parents, and yours. You go to a small temple, your family and his only very close members a dozen maybe half dozen more of you and get married. You didn't plan on doing this, you would have preferred to take your time even if you were going to be marrying him but that's not your choice anymore. Your hand has been forced.

And sometimes it's more wild. You start talking to someone. They don't seem like a psychopath, they're tolerable they're fine. You don't know what they do in detail, you know the gist but you've been talking to them for a few hours now. And compatibility is not something that comes from nowhere you decide, after explicitly ruling out people you are incompatible with for the last ten years, you need to work for it build it as you go, if you can respect them as people have space for them in your life everything else follows through. If three billion people can do this so can you. You've had your share of partners but circumstances are different now, you could exercise your options but this is not the time to everything everywhere is in the shitter. Two days after you start talking someone -- you don't remember who it was could have been them could have been you -- brings up marriage. You say you are open to it, even in the short term. Five days later one of you goes to where the other is after  eighteen harrowing hours of travel, with barely anyone else from your side. They have a few people on their side, close family and friends less than a dozen. You are barely a dozen all of you. You go to a temple and get married. You add each other on social media the second night after your  wedding. You need to know them as a person eventually.

When you are in a position to exercise your options it's of utmost importance to conserve your optionality your 'chits' so to speak to use them when things are dire and when your choices get severely limited. Not because of the gradual discontinuities of life...as you get older your choice of ideal partners goes down specially if your are a woman. It's more important for the disruptive abrupt discontinuities where you are talking to a bunch of people and in your mind have so many options and then in what is literally in no time, you have one option. And that too not for ever. Do you prefer being boxed and forced to make decisions under extreme pressure with limited choices, or would you rather consider and evaluate the course of your life and take solid steps towards controlling your destiny while the skies are clear the streets are thriving and the deaths are normal.

Life is like a movie I suppose. You get to choose if you want things to happen to you, or if you're the person who makes things happen. That's what it comes down to ultimately.