Our choices can be conscious or unconscious.
- Conscious choice is creative, the heart of authenticity.
- Unconscious choice is destructive, the heel of self-abuse.
- Unconscious choice is how we end up living other people’s lives.
“The most common despair is… not choosing, or willing to be oneself.”
Soren Kierkegaard
It’s when we’re given choice that we sit with the gods and design ourselves.
Dorothy Gilman
The reason we’re terrified of making choices, even little ones, is that we’re convinced we’ll make a wrong one.
- A wrong choice isn’t necessarily a bad choice.
- Your life would have been different. But not necessarily better.
- We, not our outer circumstances, are the catalyst for the quality of our lives.
- Bad choices are made while we’re sleepwalking.
- When we wake up, we’ll ask, “How could I have been so stupid?”
Re-source: Reflections
We shrug off any good thing that arrives in our lives as if it were a fluke, a lucky break, a mis-delivery.
- Certainly we don’t give ourselves credit.
- Only when things don’t work out, only when we make mistakes, or stumble on missteps, do we feel we’re responsible.
- Then we claim all the blame.
So it should hardly be surprising if our primary reaction to any choice is to avoid it.
- Put it off as long as possible. Postpone the inevitable.
But by not choosing, we allow others to decide for us.
- It doesn’t matter how well-meaning or wonderful they are.
- It doesn’t matter who they are. Just remember: if you didn’t make the choice, you can’t blame someone else if you’re unhappy.
Reflect on the choices you’ve made in the past, as well as on your style of choosing.
- Are you deliberate? Implusive? Comatose?
Do you make choices with your heart, your mind, or your gut?
- Are you comfortable with your style of decision making, or do you cringe?
- What about trying a different approach?
- Whatever your style, I’ll bet that your life is direct result of choices you never even considered.
The past is not only that which happened but also that which could have happened but did not.
– Tess Gallagher
craving and resource from “Something More” – Excavating your Authentic Self – by Sarah Ban Breathnach
