Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Someone asked me a question after a recent talk, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
“What if we come here just to experience the uncontrollable?”
Not to complete a mission. Not to fulfill a contract. Not to check off some cosmic to-do list. Certainly not to follow a pre-determined path.
Just to feel the weight of something we couldn’t predict, plan, or prevent. That would be the real challenge.
That question stopped me cold. Because if it’s true — and I think it might be — it changes everything about how we understand why we’re here.
First, Let’s Talk About What a Soul Plan Actually Is
I want to be careful with language here, because words carry weight.
You’ve probably heard the term “soul contracts.” I’m not a fan of it.
The word contract has legal baggage. It implies offer, acceptance, consideration — and breach clauses. It turns our pre-life agreements into something adversarial, like we’re going to get sued by the universe if we veer off course.
I prefer soul plans or soul agreements.
Not because it’s softer. Because it’s more accurate.
These aren’t rigid legal documents with remedies if we miss a clause. They’re more like loose frameworks — a relationship between us and our higher self, our guides, and perhaps others who agreed to journey alongside us.
The universe is not a cosmic courtroom.
And I don’t think we need to spend much energy worrying about whether we’re “breaching” anything. That framing misses the point entirely.
The Question That’s Haunted Philosophers for Centuries
Here’s where it gets interesting.
If soul plans exist — if there’s some pre-life framework guiding our experience — then how much of what happens here was chosen?
And if it was chosen... does that mean free will is an illusion?
This is one of the oldest philosophical debates in human history. The old Newtonian model treated the universe like a billiard table. Know the position and velocity of every ball, account for friction and force, and you can predict every outcome that follows.
If that’s true of the entire universe, then what we call “choices” are just dominoes falling. Predetermined since the Big Bang.
But here’s where it breaks down.
Even if physical systems can be modeled and predicted — and look how far weather forecasting has come with satellites and data — human behavior isn’t just a physical system. We have thoughts. We have feelings. We make decisions based on things we can’t fully measure or explain.
Yes, some say we are purely biological robots.
If we’re purely biological robots, then free will is an illusion.
And if free will is an illusion, so is moral responsibility.
And if moral responsibility is an illusion, then the whole framework of growth, learning, and accountability collapses, along with a legal system or anything that holds us accountable for our actions.
Which means: what are we even doing here?
My “So What?” Test
When a philosophical debate starts spinning me in circles, I apply what I call the “so what?” test.
Here it is: Whether free will is ultimately real or not, we have to act as if it is.
Even if soul agreements exist, most of us have no memory of making them. From inside these bodies, life feels full of the unexpected and uncontrollable. Navigating that uncertainty with wisdom and compassion — that’s the real curriculum. Regardless of what was planned before we arrived.
So I don’t get too worked up about the determinism debate. From our perspective inside this biological unit, inside what some might call the simulation, it feels real. It feels like we’re choosing. And that felt experience is what we have to work with.
A Better Model: The Adjustment Bureau
There’s a movie I recommend to almost every client I work with. The Adjustment Bureau, based on a Philip K. Dick story.
The premise: there’s a plan. But free will continuously shapes and reshapes it.
Agents in the bureau — call them guides, call them whatever resonates for you — are constantly adjusting possibilities and probabilities based on the choices we make. They make small tweaks to nudge things back on track.
Not overriding our choices. Working through them.
That model feels closer to how soul planning actually works than either extreme — pure randomness or pure determinism.
It’s not that everything is set in stone. And it’s not that nothing means anything.
It’s that there’s a framework, and we’re living inside it with genuine agency.
The Part of You That Never Fully Arrived
Before I move on, I want to pause on something that I think is profound.
I believe there’s a larger, wiser aspect of who we are that never fully incarnates.
What comes into the body is more like an emissary. An ambassador. A portion of a much greater self that remains, at least in part, on the other side.
We call that our higher self or our Oversoul.
And that connection — to what remains beyond this physical experience — is always availab...
Someone asked me a question after a recent talk, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
“What if we come here just to experience the uncontrollable?”
Not to complete a mission. Not to fulfill a contract. Not to check off some cosmic to-do list. Certainly not to follow a pre-determined path.
Just to feel the weight of something we couldn’t predict, plan, or prevent. That would be the real challenge.
That question stopped me cold. Because if it’s true — and I think it might be — it changes everything about how we understand why we’re here.
First, Let’s Talk About What a Soul Plan Actually Is
I want to be careful with language here, because words carry weight.
You’ve probably heard the term “soul contracts.” I’m not a fan of it.
The word contract has legal baggage. It implies offer, acceptance, consideration — and breach clauses. It turns our pre-life agreements into something adversarial, like we’re going to get sued by the universe if we veer off course.
I prefer soul plans or soul agreements.
Not because it’s softer. Because it’s more accurate.
These aren’t rigid legal documents with remedies if we miss a clause. They’re more like loose frameworks — a relationship between us and our higher self, our guides, and perhaps others who agreed to journey alongside us.
The universe is not a cosmic courtroom.
And I don’t think we need to spend much energy worrying about whether we’re “breaching” anything. That framing misses the point entirely.
The Question That’s Haunted Philosophers for Centuries
Here’s where it gets interesting.
If soul plans exist — if there’s some pre-life framework guiding our experience — then how much of what happens here was chosen?
And if it was chosen... does that mean free will is an illusion?
This is one of the oldest philosophical debates in human history. The old Newtonian model treated the universe like a billiard table. Know the position and velocity of every ball, account for friction and force, and you can predict every outcome that follows.
If that’s true of the entire universe, then what we call “choices” are just dominoes falling. Predetermined since the Big Bang.
But here’s where it breaks down.
Even if physical systems can be modeled and predicted — and look how far weather forecasting has come with satellites and data — human behavior isn’t just a physical system. We have thoughts. We have feelings. We make decisions based on things we can’t fully measure or explain.
Yes, some say we are purely biological robots.
If we’re purely biological robots, then free will is an illusion.
And if free will is an illusion, so is moral responsibility.
And if moral responsibility is an illusion, then the whole framework of growth, learning, and accountability collapses, along with a legal system or anything that holds us accountable for our actions.
Which means: what are we even doing here?
My “So What?” Test
When a philosophical debate starts spinning me in circles, I apply what I call the “so what?” test.
Here it is: Whether free will is ultimately real or not, we have to act as if it is.
Even if soul agreements exist, most of us have no memory of making them. From inside these bodies, life feels full of the unexpected and uncontrollable. Navigating that uncertainty with wisdom and compassion — that’s the real curriculum. Regardless of what was planned before we arrived.
So I don’t get too worked up about the determinism debate. From our perspective inside this biological unit, inside what some might call the simulation, it feels real. It feels like we’re choosing. And that felt experience is what we have to work with.
A Better Model: The Adjustment Bureau
There’s a movie I recommend to almost every client I work with. The Adjustment Bureau, based on a Philip K. Dick story.
The premise: there’s a plan. But free will continuously shapes and reshapes it.
Agents in the bureau — call them guides, call them whatever resonates for you — are constantly adjusting possibilities and probabilities based on the choices we make. They make small tweaks to nudge things back on track.
Not overriding our choices. Working through them.
That model feels closer to how soul planning actually works than either extreme — pure randomness or pure determinism.
It’s not that everything is set in stone. And it’s not that nothing means anything.
It’s that there’s a framework, and we’re living inside it with genuine agency.
The Part of You That Never Fully Arrived
Before I move on, I want to pause on something that I think is profound.
I believe there’s a larger, wiser aspect of who we are that never fully incarnates.
What comes into the body is more like an emissary. An ambassador. A portion of a much greater self that remains, at least in part, on the other side.
We call that our higher self or our Oversoul.
And that connection — to what remains beyond this physical experience — is always availab...
