[EM] 16 - Destiny
Oct. 1st, 2006 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
idontreallysparDestiny…that’s kind of a thorny question. Do I believe that destiny ruined my life more than once? Maybe. Do I believe that it brought me to where I am? I don’t know. Do I believe that everything good in my life happened because of destiny? Not so much…in so many cases, anyway.
I know that’s a little dodgy, and more than slightly on the cynical side…I just believe that in this world? A lot of people have a seriously screwed up predilection towards blaming fate, destiny, and the great cosmic powers for messing things up for themselves. I’m *not* one of those people. When I screw up, I take responsibility for my actions, and when I succeed? I’m not about to step aside and let invisible forces take the credit. I earn my laurels, and I don’t believe there’s a single goddamn thing wrong with resting on them if I deserve it. On the other side of the same token, I willingly accept the consequences of my own mistakes, because sometimes you can fix mistakes.
Bottom line is I call a spade a spade…I don’t palm things off on other people, including destiny.
[locked from all those without WITSEC clearance]
Now if you want to get down to the nitty gritty…I *do* believe in destiny in one really massive respect, and it doesn’t even have much to do with my new identity, either.
Back in Jersey, I was heading down a pretty nasty path…I was a rotten kid. Got in with some local troublemakers and spiraled into drugs…dealing *and* using, but not heavily on the latter. I even flirted with organized crime…did a few favors for a local guy that had “family” ties, if you know what I mean.
Guy offered me a rather lucrative job around the same time I got chummy with a fella named Tyler Gordon. He was a uniform that hauled me in a few times at the local precinct…stuff I was suspected for, but no charges were ever brought. Anyway, guy wasn’t much more than about six years older than me, and he talked up the department enough that I got interested.
Anyone else, I would have ignored…but Gordon was a local boy, knew my life and neighborhood. He talked to me like a person, and not a con. If our paths had never crossed…God only knows where I’d be.
To this day, I don’t *completely* believe I deserve the second chance I got…and I didn’t back then. It wasn’t easy, getting out of trouble and on the right track. My grades suffered, I had a few nasty run ins, and ditching the drugs wasn’t easy…I wasn’t heavy into anything stronger than pot, booze, and nicotine, but I snorted a couple lines at a party or two, and tried heroin once…didn’t like it.
But by the time I got accepted to the Academy, I was clean and sober, and middle of my class…for me, that was as good as valedictorian. I held down a steady job to help with the Academy and whatnot, my girlfriend and I were doing great…I had this whole fresh start, and I was scared to death of sabotaging it.
For years, I wondered if the explosion I was in was some kind of divine retribution, but I got over it. Then after a while, I realized that the folks back home weren’t the only ones giving me a fresh start.
My friends and family helped me clean up my act…and the CIA gave me my real new beginning.
I believe it was my destiny to make a better life for myself, and my new identity was proof of that. I believe the good choices I made were, in their own way rewarded…and that the losses I suffered were a necessary sacrifice to help me stay on track. My family’s safe back home, and I’ve resolved a lot of stuff in my own head and my life…including my shoddy history with relationships.
Which, I might add, is coming to an end in the *very* near future.
[locked from Rachel]
Because I have the right ring…all I need is the right moment.
[/locked]
Muse: Thomas Grace
Fandom: ALIAS
Words: 688
I know that’s a little dodgy, and more than slightly on the cynical side…I just believe that in this world? A lot of people have a seriously screwed up predilection towards blaming fate, destiny, and the great cosmic powers for messing things up for themselves. I’m *not* one of those people. When I screw up, I take responsibility for my actions, and when I succeed? I’m not about to step aside and let invisible forces take the credit. I earn my laurels, and I don’t believe there’s a single goddamn thing wrong with resting on them if I deserve it. On the other side of the same token, I willingly accept the consequences of my own mistakes, because sometimes you can fix mistakes.
Bottom line is I call a spade a spade…I don’t palm things off on other people, including destiny.
[locked from all those without WITSEC clearance]
Now if you want to get down to the nitty gritty…I *do* believe in destiny in one really massive respect, and it doesn’t even have much to do with my new identity, either.
Back in Jersey, I was heading down a pretty nasty path…I was a rotten kid. Got in with some local troublemakers and spiraled into drugs…dealing *and* using, but not heavily on the latter. I even flirted with organized crime…did a few favors for a local guy that had “family” ties, if you know what I mean.
Guy offered me a rather lucrative job around the same time I got chummy with a fella named Tyler Gordon. He was a uniform that hauled me in a few times at the local precinct…stuff I was suspected for, but no charges were ever brought. Anyway, guy wasn’t much more than about six years older than me, and he talked up the department enough that I got interested.
Anyone else, I would have ignored…but Gordon was a local boy, knew my life and neighborhood. He talked to me like a person, and not a con. If our paths had never crossed…God only knows where I’d be.
To this day, I don’t *completely* believe I deserve the second chance I got…and I didn’t back then. It wasn’t easy, getting out of trouble and on the right track. My grades suffered, I had a few nasty run ins, and ditching the drugs wasn’t easy…I wasn’t heavy into anything stronger than pot, booze, and nicotine, but I snorted a couple lines at a party or two, and tried heroin once…didn’t like it.
But by the time I got accepted to the Academy, I was clean and sober, and middle of my class…for me, that was as good as valedictorian. I held down a steady job to help with the Academy and whatnot, my girlfriend and I were doing great…I had this whole fresh start, and I was scared to death of sabotaging it.
For years, I wondered if the explosion I was in was some kind of divine retribution, but I got over it. Then after a while, I realized that the folks back home weren’t the only ones giving me a fresh start.
My friends and family helped me clean up my act…and the CIA gave me my real new beginning.
I believe it was my destiny to make a better life for myself, and my new identity was proof of that. I believe the good choices I made were, in their own way rewarded…and that the losses I suffered were a necessary sacrifice to help me stay on track. My family’s safe back home, and I’ve resolved a lot of stuff in my own head and my life…including my shoddy history with relationships.
Which, I might add, is coming to an end in the *very* near future.
[locked from Rachel]
Because I have the right ring…all I need is the right moment.
[/locked]
Muse: Thomas Grace
Fandom: ALIAS
Words: 688
