It seems like that, doesn'T it. However, we do not know if maybe what we label as "random chance" events are connected in a more complicatedf fashion to earlier events (maybe even in other lives we spend) as if we are able to see and understand that connection. Have you seen that great new movie, "Babel" (at last that is the German title)?
But that argument is dangerous ground, for it could lead to barbarism like saying "the child in Africa suffers starvation, so it probably has done something in another life that made it deserving that." This is one of the reasons why almost all Buddhist teachers and masters I ever met stressed people not to spend their time with attempts to find out what they have been in earlier lifes (most end up finding that they have been Ceasar, Cleopatra, or a king of this and that place anyway...). We have enough problems with the one life we currently live - why increasing our burdens by learning about problems in our other lifes as well...?
On a more pragmatic level, we are very often creators of our fate, yes. Walk in a wet T-Shirt in a cold winter night, and you get pneumonia. Dance half-naked through night-time streets, and you eventually get raped. Learn good at school and have better chances in the future, do bad at school, and have lesser chances. Same with regard to your children's education. But here it already starts again: you are working-class, you are poor, can'T afford to send them to best schools available. Random chance? Or logical consequence of events hidden in behind the veil of times? Is the fate of your children linked to something that you hzave done two hundred years ago - and is it all just to let you see what becomes of your children, are they only a theatre play that is the conseqeunce of something that "you" have done back then? This is an ever-imploding spiral, isn't it.
The red line between being creative and being fatalistic is a very thin one. I prefer to encourage people to accept as much responsebility for their lifes as possible, and leave out the mechanisms of "fate", "divine intentions" and "God's will" as much as possible. But I know that that attitude of mine holds it's own risks. It could lead to megalomania, hyper-activity, and destructive action. Maybe you know this old prayer:
Gott gewähre mir den Mut / God grant me the courage
die Dinge zu ändern, / to change those things
die ich ändern kann / that I can change,
Gelassenheit, die hinzunehmen, / calmness, to accept those
die ich nicht ändern kann, / that I cannot change,
und Weisheit, / and wisdom
zwischen beidem zu unterscheiden. / to differ between both.
An all-time favourite of mine.
