There are moments in history when the air itself seems to tremble, as if the world is holding its breath, waiting to see who will dare to step forward.

Toulon, France. Autumn, 1793. The French Revolution was still raw, still bleeding. Europe’s monarchies circled like wolves, eager to tear it apart. Inside the chaos stood a thin, intense 24-year-old artillery officer with restless eyes and a mind that moved faster than fear – Napoleon Bonaparte.

There is a legend, perhaps a myth, or maybe even a truth polished by time about young Napoleon. They say he visited a fortune teller, a palm reader.

She traced the lines of his hand, paused, and frowned. “You are clever,” she said. “You are daring. But you will never be truly great.” “Why not?” he asked.

She turned his palm toward the light. “You have no line of destiny on your palm.”

In the story, Napoleon did not argue or plead. He pulled a knife from his belt, looked the fortune teller dead in the eyes, and sliced his palm right where the line of destiny should have been. As blood drained from his hand, he declared, “Then I will make one.”

The obscure Napoleon did not remain obscure. Through sheer force of will and relentless ambition, he rose from a little-known artillery officer to command the armies of France. He crushed larger coalitions in Italy, outmaneuvered Europe’s most powerful monarchies, seized political control of his fractured nation, and crowned himself Emperor. He reshaped France’s laws with the Napoleonic Code and bent the map of Europe to his design.

If destiny had denied him a line in his palm, he answered by carving one anyway.

More than two thousand years earlier, another young commander stood at the edge of the known world with ambition that dwarfed his years.

In 334 BC, Alexander of Macedon crossed from Europe into Asia, setting out to conquer the vast Persian Empire. He was barely 22. Behind him lay Greece and the fragile kingdom his father had built. Ahead stretched Asia Minor and, beyond it, an empire that thought itself eternal.

As he marched inland through Phrygia – modern-day Turkey – he came to the ancient city of Gordium. There, in a temple, stood an oxcart bound to a post by an intricate knot of cornel bark. Legend claimed that whoever could untie the Gordian Knot would rule all of Asia. Many had tried. None had succeeded. The knot was a snarl of loops with no visible beginning and no clear end.

Alexander examined it. He searched for the loose thread, the hidden entrance. He found none.

So he changed the terms.

Drawing his sword, he sliced through the knot in a single stroke. If it could not be untied, it would be cut open.

The young king did not remain a hopeful invader for long. With audacity and relentless momentum, he shattered Persian forces and claimed the riches of Babylon, Susa and Persepolis. He pressed onward to Egypt, where he was declared Pharaoh, then deeper still into the heart of Asia, forging one of the largest empires the ancient world had ever seen.

If destiny had been tied in impossible knots, Alexander the Great did not wait for it to loosen. He sliced it in half and claimed his destiny.

Centuries apart, Napoleon in the smoke of Toulon and Alexander at the edge of Asia shared a single instinct: when confronted with the suggestion of limits, they acted.

Not recklessly. Not blindly. But decisively.

History often dresses greatness in inevitability. It is tempting to believe these men were marked from birth, chosen by some invisible script. Yet both began as young commanders facing older powers and steeper odds. Neither had guarantees. Neither man possessed certainty, but neither man waited for destiny to introduce itself politely.

They moved toward it.

There is a moment – quiet, personal – when you stand before your own version of the fortune teller, your own Gordian Knot. Behind you lies the known. Ahead, uncertainty.

History suggests a simple truth: destiny is not given. It is taken.

When the knot won’t loosen, cut it. When the line is missing, draw it.

Destiny does not wait for permission.

• Toby Moore is a Shaw Local News Network columnist, star of the Emmy-nominated film “A Separate Peace,” and CEO of CubeStream Inc. He can be reached at feedback@shawmedia.com.