Is It Fate Or Dumb Luck?

This past week, I went to see the movie, "Religilous". For those of you that don't know, the movie is one-sided documentary examining organized religion and its followers. The main question the movie asks is, why do people believe these books of fantastic tales (bible, quran, torah, etc.) that were written at a time when people thought sea monsters were real and that the Earth was flat? People believe so strongly in these books of mythology that they are willing to kill each other.

In one part of the movie, the tale of Jonah and the great fish was questioned. The host asked a Christian follower, if they really believed that this man lived inside of a fish for three days? The follower did believe the story. The host then asked if instead of the tale of Jonah, what if the bible talked of Jack and the beanstalk...then would he believe the story? Needless to say, I left the movie more sure than ever that my agnostic stance was not changing any time soon. So, why then do I believe in fate?

I consider myself to be a thinking person, but at the same time, I cannot ignore the string of coincidences that have happened to me lately. You see, the wife of a co-worker (and good friend) just happened to run in to the co-worker's old boss from his past company. The ex-boss asked about my co-worker, and whether his wife thought my co-worker might be interested in returning to his old company. A few days later, I learned that he had decided to leave our company to return to his old company.

Let's go back six months to an evening when Paul and I sat on the back patio in Florida discussing where we would like to move to. After we weighed all the pros and cons of every location we thought we might be interested in, we chose Denver. The list of reasons is too long to go into here, but suffice it to say that my career had no bearing on our chosen location. And in the end, it practically came down to the flip of a coin. There was no single compelling reason to come to Denver. It just seemed like a good idea.

Now, back to present day...as is often the case, my co-worker passed my name around to his new employer. His employer passed my name on to another employer who apparently has some interest in hiring me, because they contacted me and we are now in negotiations. Whether an actual job offer will materialize is yet to be seen.

But here, as they say, is the real kick in the rubber parts. Guess where the company is located that is talking to me. Yep, you guessed it...Denver!

Do you believe in fate?