Over the last week, I’ve had two bad wallet episodes.

The first involved me carelessly dropping my wallet and after a long search, finding it the next morning. I was furious with myself.

The second happened a week later. As I got off a flight, I found that my wallet was empty – perhaps room service had taken my money. I discovered this only after a long flight – 20 hours after checking out. I resigned to the idea that my wallet was meant to go – perhaps it was fate!

But what really is fate? At the first incident, i fought fate and the latter – i gave into it.

We often resign to fate when we want to make peace with ourselves. But i think it’s important to think of fate as a tool for temporary truce, than as a tool for for permanent peace. The truce is required so we can calm down and react logically to the situation at hand. The search for peace has to continue – perhaps a deeper reason exists somewhere and the temporary truce allows this search without beating ourselves up.

Update – Post the second incident, I followed up with my hotel and insurance. Insurance refunded my money. So the truce mentality does help.