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• We make choices every day

The Morning Coffee – Charles Webster Hawthorne. 1918. Wake

Every single day, we all make many choices, no matter how small. We may not even be aware we are making a choice, and yet, from the moment we wake in the morning, we are choosing, choosing, choosing: ‘Do I get up or stay in bed another 5 minutes?’ ‘What shall I have for breakfast?’ ‘What shall I wear today?’ ‘Which book do I want to read?’ ‘Should I run my electric toothbrush 30 seconds less today as I’m late for work?’

Take Your Choice – John Frederick Peto. 1885. Wikimedia Commons.

Of course, there are bigger choices to make too. Choices that may change our lives…

• Perspectives

Looking Through – Helen Lundeberg. 1964. Wikioo.

“Choices are the hinges of destiny.”

Pythagoras

The choices we make can, indeed, determine our future, our destiny. There are times, of course, when we cannot control our lives; chance and luck do have a part to play. However even when things are bad for us, our ways of seeing and the kind of perspectives we adopt are important.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

Marcus Aurelius , Meditations

How we process what happens to us in our lives can be crucial; everything is many-sided, multi-dimensional. We have a choice about the way that we approach the world, about our ways of thinking  and how we respond to other people.

“Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.”

Tom Brady

• Fears of making the ‘wrong’ choices in life.

Elenore Abbott – Now and Again I Stumbled. 1911. (for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island). Wikimedia Commons

“By our stumbling, the world is perfected.”

Sri Aurobindo

We will all, inevitably, stumble as we make our choices in life, but these ‘falls’ may be the times when we learn the most, even though they may feel like dark periods. Holding onto an awareness that failure and ‘slipping up’ can be a powerful teacher, tough though it may be, is hard to do. The greatest of achievements have been realised only after many encounters with failure. As we come across the many different routes open to us, it is then that we have choices. These choices are infinite. No two people take exactly the same direction in life, but if we do not make these choices, we may end up feeling lost and ‘at sea.’

“The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.”

 Barbara Hall

Deciding which way to go involves taking risks, coping with uncertainty and venturing into the unknown, but without taking such risks at some points in our life, we would remain static. Life would be dull and boring. Taking calculated risks in relation to our choices, weighing up the pros and cons, making mistakes and learning from them, all are necessary if we are to ‘seize the day’ and make our lives fulfilling. Managing uncertainty and not knowing how things will turn out is not easy to do, but if we are able to cope, we can find that we become increasingly able to make the choices that feel right for us. We will be more creative and feel motivated and alive, as we contribute to the shape and direction of our life.

“The road ahead is not some predetermined path that I am forced to tread, but it is a rich byway that I can help create.”

Craig D. Lounsbrough

We will never know which choices in life are the ‘right’ ones for us unless we try them and make the decision to move into a new area. This takes courage…

“I’m afraid of committing myself,” she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none.”

Paulo Coelho

Sometimes, choosing ‘the path less travelled’ may be fruitful; it can promote creativity and different ways of thinking.

“Don’t keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone.”

Alexander Graham Bell

• ‘Possibilities and limitations’…

“Consciousness is the awareness that emerges out of the dialectical tension between possibilities and limitations.”

 Rollo May, The Courage to Create

This quotation refers to the fact that life is about balancing opposites, managing the inconsistencies and changes that constantly make our lives interesting and colourful… and, at times, difficult. The ‘dialectical tension between possibilities and limitations’ is a phrase that perfectly sums up the dilemma in all our lives. Whatever we choose, there will, inevitably, be losses and gains.

• Following your passion

Leonid Pasternak – The Passion of Creation. Wikimedia Commons.

“The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion.”

Nadia Boulanger

Making what we hope will be the ‘right’ choice for us is about knowing who we are, what we want in life and what is the direction of our interest, our passions and skills. In what ways can we can contribute most to the world around us, whilst being true to ourselves and our genuine choices? Making choices in this area is no mean feat; if passion and dedication motivate us, then we can be more sure that our choices may be fruitful and beneficial to ourselves and others. Being able to work at something we love is part of the way to succeed in our chosen field.

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

• Choosing our personal path and risking choices

David Seibold. Hope. Bandon, Oregon 2015. Flickr

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”

 Nelson Mandela

Choice most often means change. Even if we choose not to to make a choice, that in itself is a choice-we have still made a decision. Mandela’s words encourage us to embark on the process of facing our fears; to conduct a risk-assessment, consider how realistic our reservations and concerns are and decide whether and how much we can sensibly override them. Whatever we do decide, each day will involve taking some kind of risk. Without taking risks and if we are playing safe all the time, we will live only in our dreams. Having realistic expectations, of ourselves and others, assessing risks, and not aiming too high, will mean that we will be able to function better in life. We will then also be able to focus on the possibilities, the opportunities and chances that are open to us. Then we can make choices in a way that propels us forward based on our hopes and our aspirations for the future.

“We are our choices.”

 Jean-Paul Sartre

© Linda Berman.