tbt – what I am saying is that if you choose to marry someone, work in a certain field, or anything else for that matter, no outcome is a result of your efforts. The marriage will succeed or fail if Hashem wants it to. The job will bring you a good parnassah or not if Hashem wants it to, etc. And yes, Hashem sometimes does “shlep” you in a certain direction. That DOES NOT mean you don’t have a choice. You have absolute free will, in fact. However, Hashem will pull you toward the outcome HE wants, regsrdless of what you choose. And in your example of hitting your own foot, I will posit a very “crazy” theory that if Hashem doesn’t ant you to spend 2 weeks in the hospital you won’t! BTW, I am not saying that things that happen in your life can’t be reward and punishment for what you do. Therefore, the mon is a bad example the way you said it. By that reasoning, you could say that there is c”v no point in tefillah. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that you may do everything right or everything wrong in any given situation and still, the outcome of the situation will be completely independent of your efforts. i.e. you can invest in a very lucrative stock that is pretty much a guarantee to make a 15% return in a month and if you make 15% after a month, I guarantee that Hashem had a way of giving you that money independent of your investment. Also, if you lost 15%, Hashem had a way of taking that money from you independent of the investment.
P.S. I don’t think it is beyond your so-called “simplicity” to learn shaar habitachon. Please learn it a few times. I am not being derogatory in any way. I mean it sincerely. Also, if you look back at your life in the last, say, 2 years, you will notice countless times where you wanted very strongly to go in a certain direction and put your efforts into it and Hashem shlepped you in a differrent direction no matter how much kochos you put in. This should be some proof of what I am saying