Destiny

I believe in destiny. There are so many examples in history where you hear about someone who worked hard toward a goal. A goal they had set early on in life, and that they knew they would attain, just as certainly as they knew the sun would rise the next morning.

In this blog, I've spoken about my nephew, who had set a goal early in life to be premier of Ontario. He has yet to attain that goal, but I have no doubts he will. There have been two other people I've met through my life who had well-articulated goals, and I decided to follow up on the careers of both those gentlemen.

The first, Douglas Phillips, was a school-mate of mine in highschool. He was among the very brightest of the bright, and had set a goal of being a supreme court justice. Douglas, as I understand, was granted admission to lawschool after only two years of undergraduate work. That is an option in Canada, providing you show promise and pass some very difficult entrance exams. He quickly flew through law school and passed the bar. By the age of 30, he was already a Family Court Judge. He is currently an Ontario judge, and gained some notoriety this year as the Judge to first declare that possession of marijuana is NOT illegal in this country.

The second, Andrew Leslie, was a young college student when he joined the Army Reserve Unit I served with in the late '70s. I was an officer in that unit, and he told us that he joined the reserves because his father and grandfather had served as senior officers in the Canadian Army, and he intended to carry on the family tradition. His grandfather had served as a general during the Second World War (at least that's what I remember him telling us), and he claimed in no uncertain terms that his destiny was to follow in the family footsteps and become a general himself. Andrew would have been about 20 years old when he made that claim. Today, while doing a google search for "Leslie RCHA" (since, quite frankly, I had forgotten his first name over the span of the last 26 years), I came across his military biography. Well, I'll be damned! If we assume an upgrade in rank every four years, as has been the pattern since his transfer to the regular forces, (2-star) Major-General Leslie will become a (3-star) Lt. General in 2007, and a (4-star) full General by 2011. That will make him supreme commander of the entire Canadian forces by age 54. I imagine he could even be named supreme NATO commander during that timeframe, who knows!