As a young kid in India’s capital city of Delhi, football was just one of the few fun things Aditi Chauhan loved indulging in. Today, she’s the face of the Indian women’s team, having gone through every possible hurdle in her path.
If there’s one thing I’ve realised over the years, it’s that timing matters as much as what you do with the opportunity and how much work you put in. And timing may seem like a matter of luck, but it’s a side-effect of this thing called destiny.
Merriam-Webster defines destiny as “a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency.” The Greeks believed that these events were controlled and set into motion by the Moirai, or the Fates as they are better known. Clotho (who spins the Thread of Life), Lachesis (the one who measures this Thread) and Atropos (the inflexible, inevitable death who cuts the Thread when the time comes) are the three that control the tapestry of every mortal’s and demigod’s existence from birth to death.
Yet, the beauty of this is that not everything was predetermined. Prophecies and destinies had enough room for the ones in question (or the Gods, for that matter) to possess the agency to make their own choices and arrive at a certain destination through different routes. Sometimes, it was years before a certain destiny was revealed in its entirety; before a Chosen One realised that they took that first step on their journey long ago without any idea of its implication, without even realising that they had been chosen.