How Much of Life Can We Leave to Fate?
- Ria Kalsi
- Oct 9
- 3 min read
What can we realistically prepare for?
I ponder this question a lot as my job is teaching people what they didn’t learn at school. The aim is to fill the gaps so people feel more prepared when they’re thrown in the deep end. But how prepared can people really be?
(Image: Pinterest)
When Life Throws the Curveball
Ask anyone what the most formative moments of their life have been and chances are, they’re in some way, unexpected. Often, it’s the ‘make or break’ moments that people see as the ultimate character development. These moments have a habit of arriving unannounced. For me, it will always be losing my Dad at 19 years old.
No one can predict the moment or the form it will take - whether it’s losing someone we love, experiencing mental health toils, or having a relationship crumble. These are the lessons fate delivers, and there’s a certain humility in surrendering to them. Yet, we can prepare for how we meet them: by building skills, resilience, learning how to ask for help, and learning to sit with our emotions without being consumed. Fate decides the event; we shape our response.
Bias Isn’t Fate
Some aspects of life - privilege, background, bias - are out of our control. But meeting these moments, no matter who you are, with preparation is power. We can educate ourselves, build good habits, challenge others, and create spaces where everyone’s heard and everyone feels safer. Fate decides the event; we shape our response.
Fate vs. Preparation
Preparation isn’t prevention. I don’t think the aim should be to prevent the hard moments. It’s unrealistic to do so. What we can do is cultivate tools to navigate them. Mindfulness, self-care routines, communication techniques, and emotional awareness become our compass when the unexpected arrives. But where do we learn this? Is learning this in itself something we can leave to fate? I don’t think so.
And listen, I’ll be a hypocrite. I put a lot of faith in leaving things to fate. Life can teach lessons we never would have anticipated, and sometimes struggle is necessary for growth. It’s a useful belief system when things feel their toughest. If we try to control every outcome, we risk restricting creativity, curiosity, and the natural resilience that emerges when we’re tested. The key is knowing where preparation ends and surrender begins: we can equip ourselves with practices and knowledge, but we cannot, and should not, try to script every moment.
The Quiet Power of Self-Empowerment
True self-empowerment is understanding the balance between surrender and action. It’s knowing what we cannot control and letting go gracefully, while fiercely investing in what we can: our mindset, our boundaries, our skills, our communities. Knowing you’ve done enough prep allows a quiet power to exist and anchor you and your mind down.
Dancing with Fate
So how much do we leave to fate? Enough to honour life’s unpredictability. And we prepare enough to ensure we can try our best when life tests us. The art lies in this dance - feeling deeply, acting intentionally, and empowering ourselves and others along the way.
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I'm Ria, CEO & Founder of Matriarch and I yap a lot about education, women and entrepreneurship.
What do you do at Matriarch?
We help people face life's toughest moments with less fear. We bring our workshops to schools, corporate companies and the public to learn about those taboo life topics and grow practical skills we so desperately need.
We do it through our game-changing workshops
- a beam so when life throws you in the deep end, you have more confidence, knowledge and empathy to navigate it. Because when people know more, they can do more.
Email me: riamtrrch@gmail.com
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