Before I start, I will say that I am a very religious person. I do follow Christianity so my opinion might be bias.

Being raised around Christians, I have been taught many things through church and family. God has a plan for our lives, this being our Fate. But he also gave us the free will to do what we want. It might be good, and it also could be bad. Someone said something about "God why would you do this?" Or something similar. But in all reality, he didn't do it to you. He didn't cause you to rob a bank and go to jail. He gave you the free will to decide what you want to do with your life. It might not be apart of his "Plan A" for you, but he always has a plan for you. Your fate might have been to go through those series of misfortunes and then that leads to you turning your life around.

That might have been very confusing and might have in no way shown which point I was trying to put across, but in summary. I am saying that I believe people have both Fate and Free Will. Overall, you have a fate, but you using your free will, you might come to that fate down a different path than you were once expected to from the start.

(I hope this doesn't stir up any controversy, that's not what I was trying to do. I was simply stating my opinion on the matter and I respect everyone elses beliefs and opinions.)