"Well, and you want your fortune told?" ~ Jane Eyre

My chicken chow fun was dwindling down to the bottom of the Chinese takeout carton. As delicious as the chow fun was, I decided that I ate enough of the wide, flat noodles and went to reach for the fortune cookie.

Tearing the wrapper, I felt the small surge of excitement I always get when cracking the almond flavored crunchy cookie.

My fortune read: "You have an appreciation for the arts and music."

What?

I felt a bit gypped. I wanted a fortune, not a statement of the obvious. Tell me something I don't know! I felt like the entire point to the cookie was lost on this particular piece of small paper. I chewed my cookie feeling disdain for Joy Hing Kitchen.

In ancient times, Romans used to tell their augurors to make sacrifices which would, in turn, predict the future. Shakespeare writes about this in Caesar. In Jane Eyre, Rochester dresses up as a fortune teller and fools Jane as he tries to insinuate his feelings for her. In my culture, Armenians will turn over a demitasse cup after drinking soorj and the lines that slide down the cup are harbingers. In American culture, we demand a fortune cookie after every Chinese food experience.

I have a desire to know the future, but I realized this morning that most of the wonderful aspects of my life were unpredictable. Had there been warnings about the bad fortunes, such as meeting people who would disappoint me or facing tough challenges at work, it would have made me a different person. I would lack both skills and emotional growth if I knew about all of the bad things to come.

If I was told about the wonderful fortunes of the future, it would take away from experiencing the events with raw emotion and a pure sense of happiness. The more I thought about my non-fortune cookie, the more I realized that I don't want to know what is around the corner. Otherwise, it would be impossible to live each day to the fullest.

That being said, we also make our own fortune. There should be only one fortune teller in my life: myself. The rest is left to chance and fate...

After eating the fortune cookie, I decided that I wanted more chow fun. So, I grabbed the carton and sat on my couch, thinking about all of the amazing experiences and relationships I have had in my life that no one person (or cookie) could have ever predicted. Family, friends, and career aside, there are emotions and feelings that are involved in my good fortune which are too special and significant to be reduced to a piece of paper folded in a rather tasteless cookie. Perhaps the best things in life are not predictable.

Still, when I folded up the carton and walked back to the kitchen, I decided that I am going to have to find a new Chinese takeout place with real fortune cookies.