A certain man asked the famous Mulla Nasrudin, "What is the meaning of fate?"

Mulla replied, "Assumptions."

"In what way?" the man asked again.

Mulla looked at him and said, "You assume things are going to go well and when they do not, you call that bad luck. You assume things are going to go badly and when they do not, you call that good luck. You assume certain things are going to happen or not happen a certain way, but you do not know what is going to actually happen. You assume the future is unknown. When you are caught out (things do not work out for you), you call that Fate."

Note: This story is one of many about the interesting character, "Mulla Nasrudin." It is an old Persian tale. On a different note, my mother who has not read this story, once said to me, "When things do not go the way we want them to, we wrongly blame Fate!"

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