The biggest picture....................

You want to talk about "big picture" thinking?  It doesn't get any bigger than this.  We're talking about stuff like fate and destiny.
      We often confuse those two words as meaning the same thing.  But UCLA professor Howard Suber clarifies the distinction.   Fate is that thing we cannot avoid.  It comes for us despite how we try to run from it.  Destiny, on the other hand, is the thing we must chase, what we must bring to fruition.  It's what we strive toward and make true.  When bad things happen, the idea of fate makes us feel better, whereas taking the time to consider eulogy values helps us think more about destiny.  Success doesn't come from shrugging off the bad as unchangeable and saying things are already "meant to be";  it's the result of chasing the good and writing our own future.  Less fate, more destiny.

-Eric Barker,  as borrowed from the chapter in Barking Up The Wrong Tree:  The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong, wherein he compares "resume" values and "eulogy" values