Natalie Feng

Lately, a friend asked me: “do you believe in fate?” My answer is yes and no, because it depends on our definition of fate. Let’s start with the question underneath: what is fate? This term is so capacious as to be almost useless. As a data scientist in consulting firm, I find it efficient to convey insights metaphorically in fast paced environment. I prefer to regard fate as a probability distribution based off our characters f(X), which can be estimated via large sample size.

Naturally we encounter the challenge from uncertainty, given our effort to unveil this trend has to be based on individual observations with systematic bias. On the plus side, although bias is not removable, it does fall around the unknown true value in a bell shaped curve, meaning the error term is not random so we could still get the hang of it. 

It is easier said than done. The aversion to uncertainty rises from our guts. Throughout human history, there has been ceaseless attempts to fill in the unknown – theories, religions, etc. The brilliant effort has helped constructing our glorious cultures, but at times it also created powerful weapons against ourselves. Indeed there is nothing more destructive than lying to oneself, not only because it is unreachable, but also a heavy toll on our life decisions made to fight off the increasing doubts. This sounds similar to a psychological condition called obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), it is mainly an effort to consistently push back anxiety but resulting in more fear and self consumption. An effective therapy for OCD is desensitization, it encourages patents to embrace the uncertainty instead of wiping it off. It is beneficial to stay poised and focus on the overall trend in the presence of unexpected incidents, it grows true confidence and courage inside of us.

If the trend of fate is correlated to our characters, then it is a good idea to develop merits. Apparent virtue is more often praised than true merit, just as it is said “Hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue”. By coming from family of politicians, I was both sad and lucky enough to observe and learn to discern delusive behavioral patterns at an early age. Constructive deeds should mostly be driven by conscience rather than ego, because the latter intention gets debunked as a matter of time. Say, enjoying split second of superiority from condescending under fabricated modesty can be attempting, covering envy by wearing sour-grape mask appears to be the easy way out, however, consistently grabbing short term benefits puts us onto bad odds in the long run. By contrast, genuine care for others offers ourselves much higher possibility to happiness.

We need a good amount of cultivation to follow less noise and keep holistic view, and it is certainly worth it, because it is called vision.