Where Is This All Going?

I used to be a sucker for "destiny" talk, as in, your efforts are futile because your life is guided by something unseen, and you'll get what you are meant to get.

I think this amounts to assuming some macro level universal zero sum game that is fundamentally flawed.  There's no reason to believe that I'll get everything I need to get.  While there is a reason to believe that everyone thinks they are exceptional, and that what they think are needs are really wants, there is not a reason to believe that my life will be okay--i.e. that I'll be happy--if I just stop thinking about being happy, or what it means to have multiple conflicting preferences within one place: my brain.

Optimism, though, is physically beneficial, apparently (excuse the lack of link).  Self-delusion, in short, can work to help us.  So maybe destiny-type thinking is more helpful.

But it seems that it eliminates for me too strongly the incentive to take steps toward my own goals, and allows as well justification for laziness.

I'm still wildly lazy.  But I'm incrementally less lazy than I was a year ago.  And that's progress.  Amen to sobriety.