I wanted to make a late reply if okay?
I personally (as have said before) believe that at the very least, some things are destined.
When I last saw my ex boyfriend POI I just knew and have never experienced anything like it before or after, that I would never see him again and it was over. Well within the next week our relationship broke down and we split. Yes, all readers saw him coming back and my gut was screaming at me like a sore stomach ache the whole time but because these readers make it so believable and because of their "popularity" and "accuracy rates", I trusted them over my gut and that fault lies with me for not listening. My gut was right all along and has been for other situations, it is my psychic guidance for free and this may sound crazy but I believe my gut is the keyhole to my destined future ie I wasn't meant to be with my ex. It was over.
I believe the free will we have is perfectly described by someone the other day - we may go to the shop but change our route, but always get to the shop in the end.
I also have had premonitions, one of which have happened in the timescale I got given in my premonition, but no I cannot read or aren't a reader.
I think life would be boring if we had free will all of the time, and you could be with someone and they just woke up one day out of free will and said "I don't love you anymore", I do personally find it comforting and not just comforting, it feels right to know that something was or wasn't meant to be. Things happen on purpose and are meant, and I've had many fated experiences which couldn't be free will.
I tried LOA to get POI's back, and did the affirmations and manifesting and it never worked, and I also kept distracted and moved on, took classes dated around and the ex didn't return (the old chestnut of move on and they'll pick this up), and I just know it was meant that we were not going to be, no matter what free will or LOA is out there.
Someone else last year gave a good example, why is it when a person wants to go in to a certain career path and all the doors shut on them if they have free will, so they go to another career path and it suits them perfectly?
I think free will is an excuse often used by readers to protect and cover themselves and I can kinda understand why, because people would ring up the reader saying "you said it was destined!", so it's easier to kinda say "well I may see so and so come back, but he has free will".
It's funny how they use free will on someone coming back or making contact, but they never tell someone "okay, your ex isn't coming back from what I see, but - he may exercise his free will and may well return but because I can't see him coming back in my reading I wouldn't waste your time". I just think free will isn't as easily accessible as readers make it out to be. Yes I do think it would be better to have things "set", and knowing that things were or weren't right for us.
People may ask what the point is if there's no free will, well we all have our lessons to learn and problems in life, not many 2 people's life are exact, some people are successful and others have to work damn hard. There's been plenty of evidence of children saying to their mother's that they chose them before being born, why would a child come out with that? I believe we choose before we are born the lessons we want to learn and goals in life we want to make and if we choose our parents before being born some of us on this earth plane are thinking "wtf - I would not choose my parents!", but alot of your childhood shapes you into the goals and lessons in life you want.
I do believe that when we get married, have children, every single person we meet (life lessons and experience) and when the chapter with that person closes, and other significant milestones are preset.
And I often hear "well if there's an afterlife why do such bad things happen to people on earth?", we are all here to learn lessons and gain experience, evolve as souls. If life was so easy we would learn no lessons, mistakes, everything would be brought to us on a plate and we would be on autopilot knowing we would have nothing to worry about or focus on, life would become boring - as it would if we were all the same and agreed with each other all the time. This forum would get boring let's face it if we all agreed with each other all the time. Disagreeing is common and it is entertaining to hear other people's opinions and experiences that differ to our own.
As I said the other day in another thread, I think spirit purposefully leave things out or are not shown our full "map", otherwise we wouldn't go through certain circumstances that we need to.