Fate or Destiny... you decide.

I wonder how many people believe in Fate. I know that by clicking you can read the definition but I do want to steal one little part. {an event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future}. Now the word destiny follows through where ever you look up the word fate. The two walk hand in hand with each other and yet to me, they are not really the same thing.
Destiny, to me, is a point that you achieve, after much strife and many trials. It is something that you reach for, that you believe in your heart is yours simply because. "He wrote with a passion, therefor he was destined to be an author." Fate, to me is something totally different. Fate is something that some believe in and others do not. It is an argued debate that goes back and forth from person to person. Fate to me is an event that happens and would have happened no matter what you did. If a man is fated to die at 25 then he will die at 25. If it is his/her destiny, because of his families medical background or where they live in the world to die young then fate doesn't play a role in it. Fate would be if the person did not live in a country filled with death but while traveling to a destination, your plane lands in a bad place. You are infected with some illness that you would have never seen in your country. It takes your life... That to me is fate. It stepped in where it was Unexpected and that is fate.
My wife was given 5 years to live. Had she died then, it would have been something that her illness had made it destined to happen. She lived, much to any medical reasoning's explanation, for 24 more years. That to me was Fate or in another name, God, stepped in and changed the ending. My father was told that he would not live for another year because of his heart and life style. He stopped smoking, changed his diet and his living, took better care of his body and 25 years later, he is still with us. Though "destined" to die because of his life, he chose to change things and in essence, changed his destiny.
I do believe we have the power within ourselves to change our destiny but I do not think we can change Fate. If we die, then we were to die then. Fate, or To me God, chooses that time. So would my father have lived 25 more years and be 76 years old right now if he had NOT changed things to be healthier? Fate has a plan for us all and so I wonder. It gives food for thought and also gives reasons for changing things in our life to try and extend it for as long as we are allowed.
"The Titanic was ill-fated..." I don't think so. It was human error that caused the great ship to sink. Fate only took those that didn't survive... Food for thought on a cold January Day... Always, Darrel