Life is a game of probabilities.
Anything is possible1, but everything has probabilities.
What we can change/affect is the probability of something happening—even an unlikely outcome. We play the long game.
This is how I’m seeing the middle way between predetermination, free will, and chaos or nothing mattering. Certain things are more likely to happen and so they do, based on previously laid causes and conditions. But they are not predetermined, they do not have to happen a certain way, they are simply extraordinarily likely to tend in a particular direction. We could change it at any time. But we sentient beings can be slow moving beasts, and it’s very hard for us to turn on a dime. Thus, we are constrained by the probabilities, but possibility is always there.
we are the only species that can imagine what we want and create a plan to achieve those desires. Wanting isn’t bad; it’s natural and automatic, like breathing.2