If you haven’t read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, go do that now. I’ll wait.

. . .

Is your life forever changed? That’s one of my favorite books, and one of its central themes is Maktub, an Arabic word meaning “it is written.” I’ll let this guy explain it better than I can:

Sometimes I think we selectively piece together our own memories to shape our present identity so that it all fits neatly together in a way that makes (chrono)logical sense. That is to say, we write our own present not by our present choices, but by re-interpreting and revising the past.

But sometimes maybe I think, Maktub.