Destiny or fate is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual.

It is a concept based on the belief that there is a fixed natural order to the cosmos. Although the words are used interchangeably in many cases, fate and destiny can be distinguished. Traditional usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "inevitable" and unavoidable. Classical and European mythology features three goddesses dispensing fate, known as Moirai in Greek mythology, as Parcae in Roman mythology, and as Norns in Norse mythology. They determine the events of the world through the mystic spinning of threads that represent individual human fates. Destiny is used with regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out; and that same sense of Destination, projected into the future to become the flow of events as they will work themselves out. In other words, fate relates to events of the future and present of an individual and in cases in literature unalterable, whereas destiny relates to the probable future. Fate implies no choice, and ends with death, but with destiny the entity is participating in achieving an outcome that is directly related to itself. Participation happens willfully.

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Destiny is not "something we do not have control of". Destiny is a sequence of opportunities (and, alas, challenges) that is given to every human being through the course of his or her life. What you do with those, which ones you grab, which ones you pass, what you endure and where you fail - is entirely up to you. You should think of the opportunities and challenges that the destiny gives you like paths and barriers on an open field. How you walk the field is up to you. You can take an easy path or blaze a trail, you can halt at a barrier or jump over it (sometimes just bypass) - but life obstacles do not determine your journey, your choices do. In effect - a destiny is something you actually have an absolute control of: those are your choices that shape it.