Ruling Power

Today I thought about what leads people to make certain choices. The previous post (regarding girls who admit yesteryear crushes) made me wonder if they are creatures of free will? What dictates the choices you make in life? Do you decide? Or is it pre-determined?

This isn't so much about choice vs. destiny. It's more about free will and outcomes. Here are some constructs to help you understand:
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Determinism: is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and behavior, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. Determinism may also be defined as the thesis that there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future

Fatalism: is commonly referred to as "the doctrine that all events are subject to fate or inevitable predetermination." Fatalists think that even if you could change the present or the past, the future would still be the same

Free Will: The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relation between freedom and cause, and determining whether or not the laws of nature are causally deterministic. In the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, it may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In the scientific realm, it may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain and the mind, are not wholly determined by physical causality

Compatibilism: is a theory that argues that free will and determinism exist and are in fact compatible. The compatibilist definition of free will states that free will is not the ability to choose as an agent independent of prior cause, but as an agent who is not forced to make a certain choice. Determinists argue that all acts that take place are predetermined by prior causes. Because human decision is an act that is not exempt from prior cause, by this definition, some determinists known as hard determinists believe that free will thus becomes an illusion.

A compatibilist, or soft determinist, in contrast, will define a free act in a way that does not hinge on causal necessitation. For them, an act is free unless it involves compulsion by another person. Since the physical universe and the laws of nature are not persons, they argue that it is a category error to speak of our actions being forced on us by the laws of nature, and therefore it is wrong to conclude that universal determinism would mean we are never free
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While I believe in free will I think previous choices tend to heavily taint our future choices i.e. what you do next is a function of what happened before. I also believe that most people lack the strength in their convictions to follow through with true free will, that they seek shelter and protection from themselves, to a large extent.

So why did 'the girls' say what they did? Perhaps they are tempted by an ideal, and want to flirt with an unknown commodity. In doing so makes them feel alive, and for an instant, free.

“There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.”- Hermann Hesse