I have been thinking about choices quite a bit lately. I am helping a few people who have made some poor choices earlier in their lives that now limit the choices they have. A little forethought would have suggested the current situation, but they were unable to step outside themselves to analyze the situation and see it. That is true for many of us.
I remember a lesson from a church class long ago that was on choices. One of the points the teacher made is that we can always choose our response. Many self-help books also point this out, so I was already aware of this. What struck me, and why I remember the lesson, was the woman who completely disavowed that capability. She honestly did not believe that she could choose her response to any situation. Her responses were automatic and not under her control. A lively discussion ensued, but she never changed her mind.
After that lesson, I constantly reminded my daughter of that ability to choose a response. I had talked of it before, but I think I really stressed it afterwards. I know she got tired of hearing it when she said, "You make me so mad" and I replied, "No, you are choosing to respond to the situation with anger."
I am grateful I learned to (usually) choose my responses. I may get angry, but I can choose how to manifest that anger. This was what the woman in the lesson could not understand. While the feeling may be automatic (and that too is subject to debate), the reaction is not. If I am angry, I can yell, cry, stew about the injustice and other similar reactions, or I can analyze why I am angry and determine if there is something productive I can do. Does the situation even require a response? Perhaps just detailing why it is upsetting can defuse it. There are books devoted to this subject, probably because so many of us have not learned how to choose reactions.
In one of his talk-tapes, Zig Ziglar jokes that he never accidentally ate any of the ice cream that caused him to gain some excess pounds. And it was no accident that he wasn't exercising enough to counteract that ice cream. It was a decision each time the spoon went into his mouth. Whether we want to take responsibility or not, we are still the one making the choice.
If you are still in doubt, consider this. When my daughter was in her first class in school, at the age of eight and a half, they were to take part in a dodge ball game for gym. She did not want to play and said so to her teacher. The teacher told her she had to, she had no choice. My daughter disagreed and said (something like), "There is always a choice. I can choose to say no. I cannot choose the outcome as you can punish me, but I can choose not to play. I have been taught I can always choose, but that means I am also choosing the outcome I may not like." Her teacher was astonished and called to tell me of this. She had never had someone that age understand that about choices.
I am writing about this because I am seeing so many adults, who should understand this, who seem to have never learned this lesson. They have never developed the self-discipline to actively make important choices, but they do complain about the results of the poor choices they are making. It is an uphill battle to help them move forward, and that only happens if they are in a place where they want to make changes. Sometimes it is easier to complain than change.
