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pf30146788e t1_j4i45s6 wrote

Reply to comment by Spf85 in [Image] Your life is not for other people to decide by nanotech23

It is. It’s from The Fellowship of the Ring.

> I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

It’s a depressing, albeit realistic, quote tbh. Frodo is about to embark on his journey with the ring, and he knows it is going to be hard. He doesn’t want to go, but he has to or the world ends. It has nothing to do with making your own decisions. It’s about accepting that you’re going to have live through some bad shit whether you like it or not, because sometimes life’s a bitch and then you die. In other words, it’s meaning is the opposite of OP’s title. Sometimes you don’t get to decide, and you just have to make do with, or make the most of, the time or life you’ve been given.

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Padhome t1_j4ioheo wrote

I've always found it more motivating than that, I think the interpretation that it's depressing is ignoring the intent of the quote. Life has trials a tribulations, but we brave them and move forward as best we can. I think this quote from Sam is a good way to contextualize it —

>"I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something."

>"What are we holding onto Sam?"

>"That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for."

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