Destiny, and a Seventeen Year Old's Encounter with Failure

My dad often tells me, "Work hard. But in the end whatever has to happen will happen, you cannot control your destiny". I find this rather uninspiring. I always reply that if my fate is predefined that why should I work hard at all. Let this great 'destiny' determine everything, I'll just sit back and relax. 

I have nourished my dream for a long time now. I have worked very hard for it, taking each and every step I needed to, in order to get closer to it. Often times, there have been setbacks, obstacles. I have often fallen down. I have been told a zillion times that I should quit, that I won't be able to make it. That it is very difficult. Lot of people have given me examples of others who tried and failed.  But I have, always discarded all that. 

And today, when I find myself so close to achieving my dreams, I feel a little lost. I worked so hard for something which I thought was going to be a major step towards the fulfillment of my dreams. I was so sure of making it. Nothing could possibly have gone wrong, after working so hard. But something did. I don't know what,  but it did. That's when I remembered my dads words. 

I wonder, is there something as destiny? Is everything predetermined? 
Was I destined to lose? Is this life's hint that I should be focusing on something else? 

After three years of working really hard for one thing, when life hits you in the head with a brick, you're left wondering if you had been lost all along.
So what am I going to do? Am I going to abandon my dreams, believing that life has just shown me that I can't achieve them, that I have something else in store for me? Do I really have something else in store for me? Or is my dream the only thing that matters. Is this all an illusion? Or is it true. Is it really life's way of telling me that I should alter my path...
To be honest I don't know. ..It's hard to think of abandoning my dream when I have nurtured it and worked hard for it so long. It's hard to even accept the possibility that I might have been deluded all this while. 

Today, when my mind is haunted by the fear of failure, I seek control. And I am being forced to realize that my life, is not entirely in my control, that success may not always be proportional to efforts, that there is this thing called fate. I detest the idea that my life has to be controlled by some great force other than those within me. Does it have to be this way? And why so?....

As I seek these answers, I am reminded of the words of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from her poem, “Will”- "There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control The firm resolve of a determined soul. "