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How closely related is Destiny to finding Love? For those who see life with practicality, destiny does not play a role in the search for love, however, for hopeless romantics, love and destiny go hand in hand.
Destiny is when someone walks into your life no matter if it’s for a short or long period of time, whether it makes an impression or not. Basically, any chance meeting is fate. In short, fate already plays the first step to meet your friends, enemies and life partner. The next steps to being with your life partner may be fate and related circumstances.
In Chinese mystical stories, there is a beautiful story of love and fate titled The Butterfly Lovers. It is set in the Eastern Jin dynasty between two scholars; Zhu Yingtai and Liang Shanbo.
Zhu Yintai is an attractive and intelligent young woman who manages to convince her father to allow her to attend classes disguised as a young man. During that time, women attending classes are unheard of. On her trip to Hangzhou, she befriended another scholar, Liang Shanbo. Unbeknownst to Liang Shanbo that Zhu Yingtai is a woman, they gathered dirt like incense and swore an oath of fraternity in the pavilion of a thatched-roof bridge.
Over the next three years, while studying together, Zhu Yingtai began to develop feelings for Liang Shanbo. However, Liang Shanbo did not realize that Zhu Yingtai is a woman and continued to treat her like her fraternity brother.
One day, his father asked Zhu Yingtai to come home. During the three years, Zhu Yingtai has already developed very strong feelings for Liang Shanbo and has made a private vow in her heart to be with him for eternity. Before his departure, he reveals his true identity to the director’s wife and asks her to give Liang a jade pendant as an engagement gift.
When Liang Shanbo accompanied Zhu Yingtai, she hinted at his identity by comparing their ‘relationship’ to a pair of mandarin ducks (a symbol of lovers in Chinese culture). However, Liang Shanbo was unable to catch track of her. As a last resort, she decided to pair Liang Shanbo with her sister and they parted ways under the Changting pavilion, where they took their oath of fraternity.
Months later, Liang Shanbo kept his promise and visited Zhu Yingtai to ask for his sister’s hand in marriage. Upon arrival, she is shocked to see that her ‘sworn brother’ is actually a woman. He fell in love with her and they make a vow “till death do us part”. However, before they could unite, they discovered that Zhu Yingtai’s family had already betrothed her to Ma Wencai, the son of a wealthy family.
Heartbroken Liang Shanbo’s health deteriorated when she heard the news, and she later passed away.
On the day of Zhu Yingtai’s arranged marriage, a mysterious whirlwind prevented the wedding procession from passing Liang Shanbo’s grave, which is located along the journey. Zhu Yingtai, sad and depressed, left her wedding procession and ran to Liang Shanbo’s grave begging it to be opened. With a thunderclap, the tomb opened and Zhu Yingtai threw himself to join Liang Shanbo. It is believed that her spirits become a pair of beautiful butterflies and will never part again.
This Chinese mystical story strongly indicates that once you are destined with a person, that person will be your soulmate/partner for life. However, in reality, the person you are destined for may not be the person you marry and the person who is your soulmate may not necessarily be your life partner either. Unlike a mystical story, love and destiny sometimes don’t go together until the end.