48. When Rock Bottom Becomes a Solid Foundation
When someone lives life as it comes, without trying to change its course or choose a different path, they are said to follow their fate. Fate decides the direction of their life. Many people around us live such lives and seem content. Fate is the natural result of ordinary development.
A life lived by default, if we use modern computer terminology.
But destiny is quite the opposite. Our potential governs it in every conceivable way. It’s something that’s eagerly waiting to unfold. It just needs a little push, some effort, like a folded red carpet ready to be touched so that it can roll over rough ground.
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves,” said William Shakespeare. A slight push can lead to great possibilities. Destiny is something we are all born with. It is our potential waiting to be realized.
If you settle for an ordinary life, fate will lead you. However, if you want to achieve your goals and turn your dreams into reality, you must be willing to take that first step toward reaching your full potential. This often means taking serious risks – risks that could even destroy you if you fail.
While substantial risks can lead to failure, they can also bring great rewards. You can follow your heart and chase your dreams only if you're driven by enough passion.
Passion isn’t something that can be forced; it must be part of your DNA. Ralph Waldo Emerson says, the only person you are meant to become is the person you decide to be.
William Paul Young was a man driven by passion. Until 2005, nobody knew who he was. After losing his home to bankruptcy, he was living in a small room with his wife and six children. He wrote a small book for his children and family members, and that changed his life. Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined that the book would become a bestseller.
His novel, The Shack, has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. The story centers on a father whose grief over his daughter’s death prompts a visit from God. It has also been adapted into a movie, starring Sam Worthington as Mackenzie, Young’s fictionalized version of himself, and Octavia Spencer as Papa, his portrayal of God.
For Young, it has been a true rags-to-riches story, made more meaningful by the hardships he has faced throughout his life.
Born in Canada, he moved to New Guinea when he was a year old. As his parents did missionary work, Young was cared for during the day by members of the local Dani tribe in an area he calls Cannibal Valley, where they practiced ritualistic cannibalism.
Young says members of the tribe began sexually abusing him around that time, and when he was sent to boarding school, he faced the same from some of the older boys there.
The residual pain from all this caused many of his future problems and also shaped The Shack. He writes: “Sexual abuse became part of the tearing apart of my own fabric of the soul. To me, The Shack is a metaphor for the place we hold our pain.”
He married Kim and started a family, working various jobs over the years, while never confronting his childhood trauma. This was his life until January 4, 1994, when his wife discovered his three-month affair with one of her best friends, but their marriage endured. In 2004, a series of unlucky investments led to bankruptcy, and the family moved into a small apartment.
To make both ends meet, Young was working two jobs that required him to spend more than two hours on the train each day. Young decided to write a book as a gift for his children. On his daily train commute, he began writing a novel that he hoped would convey his feelings about God.
He expected his family would read it, and maybe a few friends. Destiny had a different story, and the book reached the homes of more than 20 million people.
He started jotting down thoughts as if having conversations with God. They discussed pain, loss, suffering, and the human condition. It was a dialogue. He created the book’s main character, Mackenzie Allen Phillips, as a fictional version of himself.
Early in the book, Mack, called "Mack," takes three of his five kids camping, and while rescuing two from nearly drowning, his youngest daughter becomes the victim of a serial killer. Young used this device because, to explore his relationship with God fully, he felt he needed to start from the deepest place of loss.
Four years later, Mack receives a note from “Papa” — Mack and his wife’s name for God — telling him to meet at “the shack,” the place in the woods where his daughter’s body was found. When he arrives, the shabby shack disappears, replaced by a lush wonderland inhabited by three figures who turn out to be God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, all in human form.
Most of the book focuses on Mack’s conversations with the three, discussing the pain of loss and other human struggles.
He finished the book in six months and managed to raise enough money to make 15 copies, giving one to his wife and each of his six children, with the rest to friends. But when the friends shared it with others, demand increased.
He sent it to 26 publishers, all of whom showed no interest. They couldn’t identify its genre. Faith-based readers found it too edgy, while secular readers thought it had too much Jesus.
Two friends started a publishing company to publish The Shack. They ordered 10,000 copies and sold them. Between May 2007 and June 2008, with no extra promotion and mainly through word of mouth, the book sold 1.1 million copies. Publisher Hachette made a deal to sell the book worldwide, and Barnes & Noble placed it at the front of their stores.
It has been published in 48 languages worldwide and reached No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list in June 2008, where it remained for 49 consecutive weeks. He has authored two more religious-themed novels since The Shack—Cross Roads and Eve. Young says that when you learn to live without expectations, everything becomes a gift.
JK Rowling had a similar story to share. She went from being unemployed and on government assistance to becoming a multi-millionaire in five years. Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, which she says inspired her to create the Dementors in the Harry Potter series.
She also struggled with insomnia, which she attributes to working late and reading things she has strong opinions about. Train plays a similar role in her life.
It’s now widely known that in 1990, on a delayed train from Manchester to London, Rowling jotted down her initial Potter ideas on a napkin. She typed her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, on a typewriter, often writing in Edinburgh cafes with her baby daughter nearby.
Twelve publishing houses rejected her original Harry Potter manuscripts, but eventually, small publisher Bloomsbury gave her a chance with a modest advance.
Few expected it would become the bestselling book series in history. Her seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever.
Like Young, JK Rowling also hit rock bottom. She says, “I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter that I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
However, these two cases do not answer the questions I raised. In fact, fate and destiny are often considered the same, which is incorrect. Both are usually viewed as predetermined courses of events beyond our control.
A typical response to believing in fate and destiny is resignation—if we can’t change it, then why even try? Whatever happens, happens, and we can’t do anything about it.
This is called fatalism. It is widely accepted in Hinduism and is a central premise of Islam, which requires total submission to the sovereignty of Allah.
Similarly, Greek mythology tells of the Moirai, or the Fates, three goddesses depicted as weavers of men’s lives. Their decisions could not be canceled or annulled, even by other gods.
Forget about fate; destiny is in our control, and that’s enough.