schrodinger's cat

as much as i believe in choices and free will, i also believe in fate. can one change one's own fate?

yesterday sitting in the movie theater my girlfriend and i noticed an abandoned computer bag that no one seemed to claim. sadly, our immediate thought was, perhaps it's a bomb? management was notified, but they didn't seem to want to do anything about it. being apathetic, fatalistic new yorkers we stayed in our seats as the theater filled up. i thought to myself - if that is a bomb, changing seats may or may not make a difference - if we leave, who knows - something else equally bad could happen which if we stayed wouldn't happen. like schrodinger's cat - until you open the box, is the cat alive or dead? neither, it is both.

i had the choice to change seats or leave the theater, but i didn't. why did i choose not to? every decision we make, i believe is the cumulative product of the myriad of experiences we have had in the past. but if every choice is due to everything that has occured in the past where does that leave free will? did i actually have a choice? or are we going through life following a predestined path leading us to our fate? i have wrestled with this question and still have no answer. perhaps, based on the way our lives are, there is a tendency towards a certain destiny that isn't completely set in stone. i would like to think that in weighing our decisions there is enough uncertainty that we do choose and thus we can change our path, our life, our fate.