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Several years ago, I first saw this video of Angelina Jolie receiving the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 2013 Governors Awards, a ceremony by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that recognizes various actors’ achievements. I’m not particularly moved by award show speeches; I don’t particularly watch award shows.

But in Jolie’s speech, she said this.

“I have never understood why some people are lucky enough to be born with the chance that I had, to have this path in life,” Jolie said. “And why across the world there’s a woman just like me, with the same abilities and the same desires, same work ethic and love for her family, who would most likely make better films and better speeches — only she sits in a refugee camp. She has no voice. She worries about what her children will eat, how to keep them safe, and if they’ll ever be allowed to return home. I don’t know why this is my life and that’s hers.”

The concept of destiny is a finicky thing. People don’t like to be told that their life’s accomplishments have been influenced by any power other than what comes from themselves; though, in other moments, monumental shortcomings on fate or God or destiny is much easier than taking accountability.

“There was no promise that you’d end up at Colorado State University. You chose it out of free will, yes, but there are so many coincidences that had to happen before and after your acceptance to get you to where you are now.”

I’ve never been the biggest supporter of fate myself. It’s certainly freeing to let my anxieties go to the wind and say, “Whatever happens, happens,” but I’m too much of an overthinker to believe that I have zero control over much of how life plays out.

Because the truth — well, my truth — is that we have access to the decisions we make because of pure coincidence. Like Jolie so beautifully pointed out, the odds that we were born here, in this time, in this place, with the families that we have and the friends who we’ve made, were so incredibly slim.

There was no promise that you’d end up at Colorado State University. You chose it out of free will, yes, but there are so many coincidences that had to happen before and after your acceptance to get you to where you are now. If you were born in a different country, would you have ended up at CSU? Most likely not. If you hadn’t sat in that math class next to your best friend, would you have met elsewhere on a campus of over 30,000 students? It’s a pretty slim chance.

Our lives are a series of coincidences set off by one another. All of this goes to say that I am incredibly privileged with the life I have been given and the coincidences that brought me here. I’m grateful for the privilege to share my voice on a platform like this — I truly do think it was a coincidence that brought me to The Collegian, to CSU. I coincidentally was born with a CSU alum as a mom. I coincidentally was born with the privilege to afford higher education. I coincidentally was born in a country that had powerful women leaders who promoted women getting an education.

Don’t let your coincidences go to waste. Take advantage of all that you are privileged to do because of the coincidences that have brought you here.

Reach Emma Souza at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @_emmasouza.