A preexisting pattern

Whether you know it or not, you were born to have a rendezvous with destiny; your journey toward it has already begun. But my people make a distinction between destiny and fate. We don't think we are born with a "fate" that impels us to act out some script composed by a higher hand, but rather that each of us has a destiny, a preexisting pattern, which, in our hearts, we wish one day to fulfill.
~ from THE MAGIC CIRCLE by Katherine Neville