I concur. If one believes there is choice, there can be no lasting peace of mind. Because what if you make the wrong choice?

True peace of mind can only come if you recognise that your life is like a story. Written in a book, recorded in a movie. It is written, it is made but it is not yet read or watched.

The movie is so convincing, so incredibly immersive that we think we have agency in it. That we have choice. But we do not. It is entertainment, like the stories we tell in our art.

Examine your life. When did you last make a decision that was entirely removed from your past experiences? Reading this, you may lift your hand or attempt to do something to prove it is your choice to do so. But you doing that, is not independent of reading this post so not even that is a choice. It is more accurately described as a consequence of the past. All the future is that.

A consequence of the past.

The story is going to play out as it is meant to. And paradoxically, because you have no true agency in it, you are in a sense free from it. Free to watch it. To read it. To observe its unfolding.

All of this does not mean that one do not have to make choices. We do. If we did not, the movie would stop playing. The book would be put down.

Knowing this does nothing for how we live our lives, except this one thing. It removes the gravity of choice, and that makes life a little less intimidating. A little less filled with fear.