Predestination or Pure Luck?

The whole idea of soulmates is superficially appealing, but when you start to look at it carefully it loses it’s lustre.

For a start, this idea that there’s one person destined for you doesn’t hold up under any type of scrutiny. How can you guarantee that you would end up with that one specific person? What happens if your soulmate is on the other side of the world? As someone whose life has been very varied, not to say haphazard, I would have to believe firstly in a higher power, and secondly in that higher power playing 3D chess with billions of lives. It makes no sense, even if you can believe in a higher power.

Next, doesn’t the whole idea give you a problem that if the person you decide is your soulmate doesn’t stay with you for reasons of divorce or death? Is that person just someone passing through or were they the only person you were meant to be with and you or life have messed things up totally? If you marry again, are you settling for second best or did you have to marry the first person in order to find the second? Yet again, the whole concept falls apart when put under a logical microscope.

The idea of a soulmate comes, obviously as the name might suggest, from religious teachings. The whole purpose of religion is to provide a framework for not only your life but also the smooth running of society. The verse of perhaps the most dreadful hymn in the entire songbook that makes this clear is no longer sung, but All Things Bright and Beautiful is absolutely on the money with that. It goes

The rich man in the castle/ The poor man at the gate/ God made them high or lowly/ And ordered their estate.

So, everything is predestined right down to whether you can afford food!

The soulmate is a ridiculous idea that has no place in modern thinking. If you meet someone, love them pretty much straight away, go through the inevitable ups and downs of life and they still brighten your day by being there after nearly 36 years of marriage, it is the result of continuous mindful attention to the other person. It’s constantly considering what that other person needs and looking after those needs before thinking about your own.

In the final analysis, it is a very human partnership not a divine one. Don’t give yourself less credit than you deserve. It’s down to two human beings paying constant attention to each other and making every effort to ensure their partner is happy. Soulmates don’t exist and fulfilling lives in the company of one other person are the result of hard work. It’s down to you not down to any higher power.