Life- Determined by Fate or Free Will

What would be the purpose of living, then? if we are just following pre-designed paths? God gave us thought and gave us free will...to act as we think is the good way! On the other hand, we witness a lot of things that we tend to see as arbitrary. It's up to us to make arbitray things like they have a purpose, to drive our own decisions, based on our free will. God may only judge the way we acted... This is also the reason we have a conscience and a set of inner principles of living.

There is no higher being and we are not guided by fate. Our lives are determined by the choices we make at crucial moments and as long as you are happy that the choice you made was the correct one at the time, please note at the time as we are all wiser in hindsight, then you'll find that you are more content but if you worry all the time you will live forever in the past.

I'd say both, but I won't call fate "fate" or say there is a higher power behind it. Some things are just out of our control, like where you are born and how you are raised (which have a great influence over our lives) but the rest is choices. You make the choice of how to process an idea or a situation. You make the choices of friends, job, spirituality, causes, life partner and pretty much everything you can control. You even make the choice of how to deal with the things you CAN'T control. So personally I think life is determined by free will after all.