Seeking Eudaimonia

Can a life be fashioned to one's own choosing, or does destiny have a role to play?
A young man is forced to leave school in order to earn a living. Left behind, is that which he wants most; a through education. The young man, Preston, has no skill to barter with. He must find a way to earn a living, in a difficult and indifferent world.
Early struggle becomes his newest teacher. And persistence is a useful friend, helping him to forge ahead. Not prepared for any trade or industry, Preston is not afraid of work. While using the best tool he possesses, his own determination, he wanders from one job to the next. Not an easy journey, Preston does find a shoe that fits his inherent talent.
And yet, Preston is someone not satisfied with merely earning a living. He has a higher goal in mind. His ambition reaches to the stars and beyond. He would dare to know the very unknowable; the ultimate truth. Although school is long left behind, Preston would school himself. He works by day and studies at night. Living in world of his own creation, he chooses to ignore the loud and hurried world he was born into.
Then, when all is as he would have it, an unseen complication comes calling.
A grown man, able to handle any challenge, Preston now must battle the unpredictable. He uses the skill which practical living has taught him. And he discovers; what all who live will learn. It is unseen circumstance, which makes the decisive change to one's life.
Preston finds himself in a challenge he is unable to overcome. Preston is blind to a foe which no man can conquer. Love, it has snuck up on him in disguise. It proceeds to make him both a victim and a victor.