Do you believe in destiny?

Do you believe in destiny? Fate? Or the other million things that you can call it? Or do you believe that we create our own destiny through the choices we make throughout life?
If you are reading these very words right now, I want you to be honest with yourself and answer that one question: Do you believe in destiny?
Have you answered it? Good; but the reality is that you may never know if your answer was correct or not.
See, part of me is terrified if there is such a concept of fate and destiny. It would be frightening to think that the choices that I have made and will make in the future were already predetermined and I never really had a choice about how my life was going to end up. That every heart break, sadness, and anger that has consumed my soul over the years was always going to happen and I had no control of the steering wheel on this crazy journey call life. And part of me doesn’t want me to have a destiny, because I know it’ll end up only as another part of my arsenal of excuses to use to not try as hard as I can at something.
But on the other end, how could I not want to believe in a fate? I mean our fantasies and fairy tales are dependent on them aren’t they? That there is truly ‘the one’ out there just awaiting us. Or maybe that the person you have fallen for was just meant to be all along. And that maybe there is a reason out there for us; That we have purpose that is unknowingly binding it time until we reach our destiny. It’s odd isn’t it, to think about having a destiny and being excited that there is a path already drawn out for us to maybe have our own happily ever afters.
But back to the question: Do you believe in destiny? Or do you believe that we make our own destiny by the choices we make?
For me, I believe in both. I believe that we have a destiny but just different paths to get there. That the choices we do make do matter and will ultimately decide how fast we reach our destiny and if in the end will decide if we will happily embrace our destiny or not.
So what do you believe in?