Five Easy Assumptions

I have made five assumptions about you and invite you to make the same about me. First, you are a human being, whether you want to be or not. Second, you were born into a point of time which you did not choose. You live now, as you read this, not 2,000 years ago, not 2,000 years from now. Third, you did not choose the place or circumstances of your birth. You were of a certain nationality and learned to speak a certain language or languages. Your family was big or small, wealthy or poor, and it lived in this region as opposed to that. Fourth, you did not choose the particular characteristics, physical and mental, that you yourself were born with. You are short or tall, handsome or ugly, intelligent or dull, talkative or quiet. Fifth, up until this moment of your life you have committed an almost infinite number of acts of volition, dictated wholly, or at least largely, by the other four portions of your nature. These acts, along with the many chance occurrences of your life, have impelled your development and now have the certainty of fate. You will continue for the rest of your life to commit acts of volition, however much time you have left.