Random Cause or Random Effect?

Have you ever felt that you were drawn to a particular career, choice of school, partner, or set of friends? Perhaps you'd thought of what might have happened if you hadn't played that sport in high school, or if you didn't have that fender bender on the way home from work, or if you were born to another set of parents in another country and time? Which parts of your life would have been drastically differently, and which would be similar? Is it all an accident that we are who we are at this place and time, or is it fate?

Life is filled with regrets and 'what-ifs'.. it's a part of how we improve ourselves and prepare for whatever is next.

We've all heard of the "butterfly effect," which is the idea that the slightest of actions can cause a cascade of changes and ultimately have a large influence over the events of the future. To visualize how the butterfly effect may impact real objects, we can see how these double pendulums trace very different paths when their starting points are only slightly different:

If we apply this to the decisions we make in life, we might wonder whether our best-intentioned decisions will actually lead to a positive outcome.

As opposed to the "butterfly effect," the video below depicts how rules may actually allow different choices to eventually settle on the same overall pattern - a behavior known as an "attractor." This video shoes an instance where a few simple rules and random choices end up creating the same outcome:

Then perhaps no matter where we start or which paths we take, each of was destined to arrive at the same place all along. When you reflect on your choices and actions, which of these scenarios do you consider most applicable to your life? Do you take control, or are you along for the ride?