When you come out the tunnel

This whole unit to me has been like an endless, dark tunnel. Now that we are coming to the end, I can't help but feel that I didn't grasp the understanding that was in the tunnel. Its like a bat fluttering around, you can't see it in the dark, but you know its there and if you try to reach for it it slips out your fingers and flutters off again teasingly. So we are nearing the end of the tunnel, but I can't seem to catch the bat, or maybe I just don't reach for it. Either way I'm one batless muthaflippa.

What little I have learned though, I take pride in. So we all have free will right? Right. We choose whether or not to get up in the morning, we choose to eat, go to work, live our lives, affect other's lives: it all comes down to choice. So we choose our fates right? to the extent to our choices. For example if we choose not to get up, we are unknowingly choosing the Well yes. Our choices over the course of our lives lead to our fate, which is inevitable, but is only inevitable consequences and rewards of not going to work or school or whatever. But fate in the real world is unknowable by all, so the choices we make are only part of the real impact, like a piece of rope with an invisible end. So our fates are a result of our choices right? But how can that be if, lets say, a man in Ethiopia works his whole life to become a painter and ends up a farmer in Venezuela. You can't honestly say he chose to become what he became. Again, our fates are going to happen because we don't know what our fates are. In other words, because we don't know our fates, who is to say that what we end up isn't our fate, even if we don't want it to be how it is. It seems like the easy way out. I know, isn't it great?

This is what I don't understand. First is the relationship between irony and fate. Maybe fate is ironic in nature, but that doesn't make sense because who's there to recognize the irony, and even then what do they matter? Weird. Next is the nature of responsibility. It seems pretty straight forward, own your choices, your fate, and everything. What I don't get is how we are supposed to take responsibility for our fates if we don't recognize when we've met our fate? I doubt everyone calmly and openly accepts all the consequences of their actions their entire lives, or however long it takes to reach fate. When do we reach fate? Can we reach fate? Who are we? Who am I? Who are YOU?!
There's something to think about.!