Have you ever thought about how easy it would have been for your life to turn out completely different? Even the smallest decisions you've made in your life have all amounted to the exact place where you are now. These could be things that hardly even seem significant at all in the grand scheme of your life, but thinking back that single moment could have changed everything.
Think about how you met the most important person in your life. Now think about all of the countless ways you could have done something, any little thing, differently and not ended up in that specific place at that very moment. You would not have had the experience of having this incredible person as part of your life. It's easy to take advantage of what you have and forget just how much you appreciate the little things.
What if instead of going to that coffee shop that day you met your significant other, you had gone to the one down the street like you usually do? What was it that made you decide on that day you wanted to switch things up? Just a feeling perhaps?
And just think back to all of those times where you were driving and came so close to hitting or being hit by another driver that your heart sinks to your stomach. What if you had been just a half a second faster and slammed right into them? That one second made all the difference in determining a significant moment in your life.
Even with the bigger decisions in life like getting married or going away to college the same concept applies. In one single moment you could have made the choice to go to the school further away instead of sticking closer to home. You would have met an entirely different group of people and perhaps missed out on meeting some of your best college friends. None of the experiences you had having chosen the school you did would have would be the same. They may not necessarily have been better or worse, just different. What would have happened if you'd decided that one fight you had with your boyfriend or girlfriend that one time was the last straw and walked away instead of staying to fix it?
With all of the different "what ifs" out there it's crazy to think about what our lives could have been like had we chosen a different pathway for ourselves. Any time you were stuck between two different options you could have kickstarted an entirely alternate path for yourself than the one you're on now.
Perhaps it could have something to do with what some people would call fate, but in practically every instance it is the decisions you make on a daily basis, big or small, that control so much more of the outcome of your life in the big picture than they seem to in the moment in which you make them.