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The Fates: The Wisdom of What Cannot Be Controlled — Not Everything Is Yours to Decide · Create Love Create Freedom

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Create Love Create Freedom Podcast.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: This podcast explores feminine psychology, embodiment, sovereignty, archetypes, and conscious womanhood in a post spectacle world.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: My name is Alison Fisher, and my work centers on internal authority and relational clarity across the seasons of a woman's life.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: As you listen to today's episode, there's nothing you need to force here.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: We're simply noticing what is already present and allowing clarity to unfold over time.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: On today's episode we are going to be discussing the fates, the wisdom that cannot be controlled, and how we can remain sovereign when life contains things we cannot choose.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: There are three women in Greek mythology who hold the thread of human life.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: They are the Moirai, the fates.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Clotho spins the thread.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Lacasis measures it, and Atropos cuts it.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: There is something unsettling about the fates because they represent a reality we don't always like to acknowledge.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Not everything is ours to decide.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: We can make choices, we can change our lives, we can leave, but again begin again, build something new, develop greater wisdom, take responsibility for ourselves, and I believe deeply in that kind of agency.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: But agency is not the same thing as control, because there are things we don't choose.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: We don't choose where our lives begin.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: We can't control the decisions other people make.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: We cannot undo the past, we cannot guarantee that effort will produce the outcome we want.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: We cannot prevent every loss, and eventually every human life encounters atropos, the thread is cut.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't think the fates require us to believe that every detail of our lives has already been predetermined.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: I think they offer us a much more useful question What belongs to choice and what belongs to reality?
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Because perhaps maturity requires both the courage to change what is ours to change, and the wisdom to recognize what must be met, accepted, grieved, or worked within.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: The faiths don't necessarily ask us to surrender our sovereignty, perhaps they ask us to understand its boundaries, because we may have enormous authority over how we live our lives, but we were never promised authority over life itself.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: First we're going to be discussing Clotho, something is given.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Clotho is the first of the three fates.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: She is the spinner.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: In the ancient image, she draws out the thread of human life.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Before anything can be measured by lackathus or eventually cut by atropos, there has to be a thread.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Something has to be given.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's an interesting place to begin when we're talking about sovereignty, because every human life begins with circumstances we didn't choose.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: We didn't choose when we're born, we didn't choose where we're born, we didn't choose our original family.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: We didn't choose the historical moment we were born into.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: We didn't choose our earliest experiences, and we didn't choose many of the characteristics of the body we inhabit or the natural temperament in which we first encounter the world.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: Before we are capable of making meaningful choices for ourselves, something has already been given to us, and what is given is not distributed equally.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Some people begin life with enormous resources, others begin with very little.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Some are born into safety, others into instability.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Some inherit money, education, opportunity, strong communities, or families capable of preparing them well for adulthood.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Others inherit problems they will spend decades learning how to understand.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to pretend those differences don't matter in order to believe in agency.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think genuine agency requires that we it requires us to acknowledge them.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Because sovereignty cannot mean pretending we all begin with a blank piece of paper.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: We don't.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Clotho has already placed a thread in our hands, and perhaps the first question isn't why wasn't I given a different thread?
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it is what has actually been given to me?
5:56
SPEAKER_00: That question requires a kind of honesty, because some of what we've been given we may love, a particular gift, a mind that works in a certain way, a family tradition, a place we came from, an opportunity someone created for us, a capacity that seems to have always been there, and some of what we've been given we may have spent years wishing were different, a limitation, a loss, a family dynamic, a financial reality, something that happened long before we possessed the power to stop it.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is where acceptance can be misunderstood, because acceptance is not approval.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Accepting that something happened does not mean believing it should have happened.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Accepting that something is limited does not mean I have to like the limitation.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Accepting that something is unfair does not suddenly make it fair.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Acceptance simply means that I am willing to stop requiring reality to be different before I decide how I'm going to live with it.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And strangely, I think that often gives us more agency rather than less, because there is a tremendous amount of energy involved in arguing with some something that has already happened.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: This shouldn't have happened, perhaps it shouldn't have.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: I should have had different parents.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you should have.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: I should have had more opportunities.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you should have.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: My life would have been easier if this had been different.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it would have.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: And there can be grief in acknowledging all of that.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: But eventually another question arrives.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Given that this is the thread I actually have, what am I going to do with it?
8:06
SPEAKER_00: That is where acceptance becomes different from resignation.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Resignation says this is what I was given, therefore this is all my life can ever be.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: Acceptance says this is what I was given, now what remains possible.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Those are profoundly different postures.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: We can work with what we've been given.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: We can develop capacities we weren't taught.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: We can leave environments we didn't choose.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: We can question beliefs we inherited.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: We can build financial security that didn't exist in our childhood.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: We can create relationships unlike the ones modeled for us.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: We can use gifts we inherited beautifully.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: We can refuse patterns that have traveled through generations.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: And there are also things we may never completely change.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Part of wisdom is learning the difference.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't think Clotho asks us to romanticize the hand we've been dealt.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't ask us to call every wound a gift.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't ask us to pretend suffering happened for a reason.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: She simply stands at the beginning of the thread and reminds us a life always begins with something given.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps sovereignty begins not when we gain the power to choose every condition of our existence.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: That was never possible.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it begins when we can look clearly at what was given to us without denial and without allowing it to become the entire definition of who we are.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: This is my history, this is my body, this is where I began.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: These are the gifts I received, these are the things I did not receive.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: These are the circumstances I cannot go backward and change.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And from here I choose.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Clotho gives us the thread.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: She does not necessarily tell us what we must make from it, and perhaps that's where fate ends and authorship begins.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Next we're going to examine Lacus.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: We still shape the thread.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: If Clotho reminds us that something was given, Lacathus introduces a different question What happens after the thread is placed in our hands?
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Lacathus is the second of the three fates.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: She is often described as the one who measures or apportions the thread, determining the proportion of life allotted to each person.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think she gives us an interesting place to explore the territory between fate and authorship, because even if we accept that there are things about our lives we didn't choose, that doesn't mean our lives simply happen to us.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: We still participate in what they become.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: I may not have chosen where my thread began, but I make thousands of choices about what I do with the life that follows.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: What do I cultivate?
11:38
SPEAKER_00: What do I refuse?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: What do I learn?
11:42
SPEAKER_00: What do I tolerate?
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Where do I place my attention?
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Who do I allow close to me?
11:49
SPEAKER_00: What do I do with my money?
11:52
SPEAKER_00: What do I do with my time?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: What kind of work do I pursue?
11:57
SPEAKER_00: What do I continue carrying because it belongs to me?
12:03
SPEAKER_00: And what do I finally decide to put down?
12:07
SPEAKER_00: None of those choices give me complete control over the outcome, but they matter.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we make the mistake of believing that agency only counts if it guarantees the result.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: If I make good decisions, shouldn't things work out?
12:28
SPEAKER_00: If I take care of myself, shouldn't I remain healthy?
12:33
SPEAKER_00: If I work hard, shouldn't I succeed?
12:36
SPEAKER_00: If I love someone well, shouldn't the relationship survive?
12:41
SPEAKER_00: If I make a responsible financial decision, shouldn't it produce the return I expected?
12:50
SPEAKER_00: But that's not actually how life works.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Choice influences outcome, it does not command it.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I can make an excellent decision with the information available to me and still experience an outcome I didn't want.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: I can make a terrible decision and occasionally get lucky.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: I can prepare carefully and encounter something I could have not anticipated.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: I can do everything within my power to create a particular result while another person's choices, economic conditions, timing, chance, or simple reality changes what happens next.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make our choices meaningless.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: It simply means that agency and outcome are not the same thing.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that's one of the things Lackathis teaches us.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: The thread has limits, it has conditions.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: It exists within circumstances larger than our individual will, but within those conditions we are still living, still choosing, still shaping, still becoming.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: I think that's where sovereignty becomes much more interesting than control.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Control says I should be able to make this turn that make this turn out the way I want.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Sovereignty says I am responsible for the quality of my participation even when I cannot guarantee the result.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: I can choose whether I prepare, whether I tell the truth, whether I leave, whether I stay, whether I learn, whether I repair the damage, whether I try again, whether I change strategy when something isn't working, whether I continue investing my life in something simply because I've already invested so much, whether I allow disappointment to teach me something without allowing it to decide everything that comes next.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Those choices shape a life, not perfectly, not absolutely, but meaningfully.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps this is also where we have to be careful with the language of fate, because saying this is simply my fate can sometimes become a way of surrendering agency we actually possess.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: There are things we cannot change, but there are also things we tell ourselves we cannot change, because changing them would be difficult, frightening, expensive, disruptive, or uncertain.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: And those aren't the same thing.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I cannot change what happened to me, but maybe but I may be able to change what I build around it.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I cannot control whether someone chooses me, but I can decide whether I spend years waiting to be chosen.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I cannot control whether a business succeeds, but I can change the strategy, learn from the market, develop my judgment, manage my resources, and decide how much risk I am willing to carry.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I cannot control how long I have in this life, but I have some authority over what receives the life I do have, and perhaps that's what makes the image of Lacasis so compelling.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: She measures the thread.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: She reminds us that life is not infinite, our resources are not infinite, our possibilities are not infinite, and because they aren't infinite, our choices matter.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: If I had unlimited time, choosing how to spend today wouldn't mean very much.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: If every path remained permanently available, choosing one would carry very little weight, but life has proportion, there are limits, and within those limits we create direction.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: So perhaps the question lacas leaves with us is not how do I control my fate?
17:27
SPEAKER_00: It is given the portion of life that is actually mine, how will I participate in shaping it?
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Clotho gives us the thread.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: Lacasis reminds us that it is finite, and somewhere between what has been given and what will eventually end, we still get a choice about what we do with it.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Next we're going to look at atropos.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Some things end without our permission.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: And then there is atropos, the third of the fates.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Clotho spins the thread, Lacasis measures it, and Atropos cuts it.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Her name is often translated as the unturning or the inflexible, the one who cannot be turned aside.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think she may represent the part of reality we find most difficult to accept, because some things end without our permission, some doors close before we are ready, some people leave when we would have chosen for them to stay.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Bodies change, opportunities disappear, places we loved cease to exist in the form we remember them.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Relationships end, seasons of our lives pass, and eventually, of course, life itself ends.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Atropos reminds us that there are moments when our agency encounters something it simply cannot negotiate with.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think this can be particularly difficult in a culture that teaches us to approach almost everything as a problem to be solved.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: If something isn't working, fix it.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: If something hurts, heal it.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: If you've lost something, replace it.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: If you don't like the outcome, try harder.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes those are exactly the right responses, but not always, because not every painful thing is a problem awaiting a solution.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes is simply over.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: And when something truly cannot be changed, continuing to treat it as a problem may actually keep us from doing the thing reality now requires of us, which may be grieving.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: I think grief is interesting because grief is one of the few human experiences that does not necessarily ask us to fix anything.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Grief says something mattered, something existed, and now something has changed that I cannot undo.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: There may be practical decisions that come afterward.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: There may be rebuilding.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: There may even eventually be another relationship, another opportunity, another home or another version of ourselves.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: But grief itself does not require us to immediately turn loss into growth.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to rush to ask what it taught us.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to make every ending meaningful.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to insist that everything happens for a reason.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can simply say I wish this had been different.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: I wish I had gotten more time, I wish this person had made another choice.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could go back.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: I wish this had not ended.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And still understand that wishing cannot make the thread whole again.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: That isn't powerlessness, it is recognition.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps one of the more difficult forms of maturity is learning when to stop bargaining with what has already happened.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Because there is a difference between perseverance and refusal to accept an ending.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: There are moments when perseverance is extraordinary, when something can still be repaired, when a Another attempt is warranted when we might when we need to fight for something that matters.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: But there are also moments when continuing to fight is really an attempt to avoid the reality that something has already changed.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom has to know the difference.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think atropas also complicates the way we think about failure.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Because if we believe that sufficient wisdom, effort, healing, discipline, or love should allow us to preserve everything that matters to us, then every ending can begin looking like evidence that we did something wrong.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: But endings are built into life.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: A relationship can have been meaningful and still end.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: A business can have mattered and still close.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: A friendship can have been real and still belong to a particular season.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: A version of ourselves can have served us beautifully and still need to be left behind.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: An ending does not automatically invalidate what came before, and perhaps atropos asks us to develop the capacity to let something be complete without requiring it to have lasted forever.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: There is sadness in that, but I think there is also freedom, because when we stop demanding permanence from everything we love, we become capable of accepting things for what they actually are.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Not everything is meant to accompany us through every chapter, and not every ending is ours to prevent.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: So perhaps Atrapos leaves us with one of the hardest questions in the entire mythology of the Fates Can I allow something to be over without treating its ending as evidence that I failed?
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Can I grieve what was lost?
24:15
SPEAKER_00: Can I honor what mattered?
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Can I acknowledge that I wish something had been different?
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And then when the time comes, can I turn toward the life that remains?
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Atrapos cuts the thread, and there are moments when we cannot stop her.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: But even then something remains ours how we meet the ending.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Next we're going to examine the boundary between agency and reality.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: When we bring the three fates together, I think they reveal one of the most important distinctions we can learn to make what is mine to influence and what is mine to meet?
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Because those are not the same thing, and much of our suffering can come from confusing them.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we treat something as fate when it actually belongs to our agency.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: We tell ourselves this is just the way my life is.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: This relationship will never change.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: I'll never be good with money.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: I'll never be able to leave.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing I can do.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes there is something we can do.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: It may be uncomfortable, it may require sacrifice, it may take years.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: It may require us to disappoint someone.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: It may require us to admit that something we've been doing isn't working.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: It may require us to become more capable than we currently are.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: But difficulty is not the same thing as impossibility, and if we mistake difficulty for fate, we can surrender authority that actually belongs to us.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: But I think the opposite mistake is just as important.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we encounter something that does not belong to our agency, and we exhaust ourselves trying to make it yield to us.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: We try to control another person's choices.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: We try to guarantee an outcome.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: We try to prevent every possible loss.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: We try to make someone understand something they are unwilling to understand.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: We try to make an opportunity arrive according to our preferred timeline.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: We try to make reality conform to the story we had already written about how our lives were supposed to unfold.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: And eventually we discover that there are parts of life that simply do not answer to us.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: I think this is where some forms of self-development can become complicated, because I believe enormously in our capacity to change.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I believe we can heal, I believe we can develop, I believe we can become wiser, I believe our choices can dramatically alter the trajectory of our lives.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: But there is a subtle point at which belief in agency can become a fantasy of omnipotence.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: If I become healthy enough, nothing terrible will happen.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: If I make enough good decisions, I won't fail.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: If I understand myself well enough, I won't make mistakes.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: If I love someone well enough, they will love me well.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: If I align myself perfectly enough, life will give me what I ask for.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: But reality doesn't make those promises.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: You can do everything wisely and still encounter laws.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: You can take excellent care of your body and become ill.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: You can build carefully and encounter an economic environment you could not control.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: You can make a thoughtful decision based on the information available and later discover something you could not have known.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: You can love someone beautifully and still be unable to choose who they become.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: You can prepare for one future and find yourself living another.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: And none of that necessarily means your agency was meaningless.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: It means your agency existed inside reality rather than above it.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: I think that's an important distinction, because sovereignty isn't the ability to stand outside the conditions of being human.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Sovereignty is the capacity to govern ourselves within them.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that means we need two very different kinds of courage.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: There is the courage to act when something belongs to us, to make the decision, to have the conversation, to change direction, to leave, to begin, to repair, to take responsibility, to do the difficult thing that is actually ours to do.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: But there is another kind of courage required when something does not belong to us the courage to stop bargaining, to accept, to grieve, to adapt, to wait, to work within a limitation, to acknowledge that another human being possesses sovereignty too, to allow reality to be real even when we would have written it differently.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps wisdom is knowing which courage this moment requires, because if something belongs to my agency, acceptance can become avoidance.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: But if something belongs to reality, relentless action can also become another form of denial.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: So instead of always asking how can I make this turn out the way I want?
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps there is a better question What belongs to me here?
30:47
SPEAKER_00: What decision belongs to me, what responsibility belongs to me, what action belongs to me and what does not?
30:57
SPEAKER_00: What belongs to another person?
31:00
SPEAKER_00: What belongs to circumstance?
31:02
SPEAKER_00: What belongs to time?
31:04
SPEAKER_00: What belongs to chance?
31:07
SPEAKER_00: What belongs to the past?
31:10
SPEAKER_00: What simply belongs to the fact that I am a human being living a finite life?
31:19
SPEAKER_00: The fates do not give us a formula for answering those questions.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: We still have to develop the judgment to tell the difference.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: But perhaps they give us permission to stop treating every limit as a personal failure.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Clotho reminds us that something is given.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: Lacasis reminds us that we still shape what we can.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Atropos reminds us that some things cannot be negotiated, and somewhere between those truths is the boundary between agency and reality.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is not merely knowing how to exercise our power.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes wisdom is knowing where our power ends.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Lastly, we're going to discuss sovereignty with omnipotence.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the most important things the fates can teach us is that sovereignty and omnipotence are not the same thing, and perhaps we sometimes confuse them.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: When a woman first begins to understand her own sovereignty, the discovery can feel enormous.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: I have choices.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I can say no, I can leave, I can change my mind, I can decide what I believe.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: I can build a life differently from the one I inherited.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: I can choose what relationships I participate in.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: I can determine what receives my time, my money, my energy, my attention.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: I can become someone my younger self could not yet imagine.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: That discovery matters, especially if we have spent portions of our lives believing that our choices belong to someone else.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: But I think sovereignty eventually has to mature beyond the discovery that I can choose, because eventually we discover something else.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: My choices have boundaries.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: I have authority over myself, I do not have authority over anyone else around me, and I certainly do not have authority over reality itself.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: I can decide to tell the truth, I cannot decide how someone responds to it.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: I can set a boundary, I cannot decide whether someone likes the boundary.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: I can prepare carefully for an opportunity.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: I cannot guarantee that I will receive it.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: I can build something I believe deserves to succeed.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: I cannot command the world to agree with me.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: I can love someone, I cannot make them become capable of receiving that love.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think accepting these boundaries actually makes sovereignty more meaningful, because otherwise sovereignty quietly becomes control, and control asks how do I get the world to behave the way I need it to behave so that I can feel safe?
34:43
SPEAKER_00: Sovereignty asks something different.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Who will I be even when the world does not obey me?
34:52
SPEAKER_00: That is a much more difficult question, because now my stability cannot depend entirely upon getting the outcome I wanted.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: My sense of self cannot depend upon another person's agreement.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: My judgment cannot be evaluated solely by whether everything worked out.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: My life cannot become meaningless simply because something happened that I would never have chosen.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't mean becoming indifferent to outcomes.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Of course outcomes matter.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: We work toward things because we want them.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: We protect what matters because we don't want to lose it.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: We plan because some futures are preferable to others.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: We make careful decisions because consequences are real.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: But perhaps mature sovereignty allows us to hold two truths at the same time.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: I will participate fully in shaping my life, and I will not pretend that I am the only force shaping it.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Other people possess agency, institutions have power, history has consequences, bodies have limits, chance exists, timing matters, circumstances change, and eventually every one of us encounters realities that cannot be persuaded by how badly we want something to be different.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: That is not an argument for passivity, it may actually be an argument for greater possibility.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Because when I stop trying to control what isn't mine, I can become much clearer about what is mine.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: My conduct is mine, my choices are mine, my preparation is mine, my boundaries are mine.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: My willingness to learn is mine.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: The repair I make after I've caused harm is mine.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: The way I steward what has been entrusted to me is mine.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: The decision to continue or sometimes the decision to stop is mine.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: My response to what happens next is mine.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: And there is something something deeply freeing about no longer taking responsibility for things that were never ours to govern.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Other people's development, other people's perception of us, every possible outcome, whether everyone understands, whether everything lasts, whether life follows the timeline we imagined.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we can put those things down, not because they don't matter, but because they were never ours to command.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what gives us a more mature understanding of authorship as well.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: To author your life does not mean writing every event that occurs within it.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: No human being has that power.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps authorship means deciding what you will make of the material that arrives.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: What will this mean to me?
38:27
SPEAKER_00: What will I carry forward?
38:30
SPEAKER_00: What will I refuse to repeat?
38:32
SPEAKER_00: What will I build now?
38:35
SPEAKER_00: Who will I become in relationship to what has happened?
38:41
SPEAKER_00: The fates give us the thread.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Life places other people, circumstances, interruptions, losses, opportunities and endings along it.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: And still we participate, still we choose, still we create.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: We are authors of our participation in life.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: We are not the authors of life itself.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps sovereignty becomes stronger when we finally stop requiring it to make us omnipotent, because mature power does not need to control everything, it needs to know what belongs to it, and then it needs the courage to govern that well.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: As we conclude today's episode, I think it's important to understand that not everything in life is yours to decide.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: Clotho spins the thread, Locus measures it, Atrepos cuts it, and somewhere within that thread we live.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: We choose enormously, we control surprisingly little.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps wisdom is partly learning the difference.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: There are moments when life asks us to act, to decide, to change something, to take responsibility for what belongs to us.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: And there are other moments when life asks something entirely different to accept, to adapt, to grieve, to wait, to work within a limitation, to allow another person to make a choice we would have not chosen for them, to release something whose ending we could not prevent.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: Not everything is ours to decide, and I don't think recognizing that makes us powerless.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it allows us to stop spending our power where it cannot accomplish everything.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: The fates remind us that sovereignty was never a promise that life would obey us.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: It was never the ability to control every outcome, prevent every loss, or write every event into existence.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: Sovereignty is knowing what belongs to us within the life we have actually been given.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: What will I choose?
41:22
SPEAKER_00: What will I tend?
41:24
SPEAKER_00: What will I change?
41:26
SPEAKER_00: What will I accept?
41:28
SPEAKER_00: What will I grieve?
41:30
SPEAKER_00: And what will I finally allow myself to put down?
41:34
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the opposite of control is not always powerlessness.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the opposite of control is a relationship with reality, a willingness to meet life as it is rather than only as we hoped it would be, and perhaps that is one of the quietest forms of wisdom to participate fully, to choose where choice is ours, to release what never belonged to our authority, and to understand that while we may never hold the entire thread, we still decide how we live while it is in our hands.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being here.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: Let whatever was useful in today's episode settle in its own time.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Clarity, I have found, tends to unfold naturally when we give it space.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay rooted, stay sovereign, and trust your own becoming.