beyond the two roads that diverge

Choice. Free will. Options.

These three things I didn’t learn until later on in life when my shrink was helping me cope with my BPD. It may seem absurd but it’s true when I write I grew up without having to make choices. Everything was pre-selected. Clothes, food, friends, classes, bed time, games, shoes, books, and anything you can think of. My parents made the decision. And it encompassed everything in my life. The upside was I had simply follow, wear, read, think what they’ve decided upon. The downside? Well losing my identity and becoming dark and twisted when I tried to know it.

It’s quite ironic that despite the fact that majority of the human population at this age live in a democratic environment, people do not exercise their right to choose. And it’s quite interesting to note also that most of the people who exercise their right to choose, they don’t choose wisely. We often compromise to what is convenient, easy and beneficial to ourselves or to our loved ones rather than deducing the possibilities, weighing the outcome of the possibilities, and acting on what is right to the standards of God rather than man. But there is nothing surprising about that. Man’s obvious depravity has left little room for wise choices.

Do not misinterpret me. I am fully aware that the common man do not wake up in the morning plotting evil deeds. I am fully aware that man strives to be good and accepted by all. But I am also fully aware that when decisions have to be made, esp. hard ones, man often thinks about which choice would hurt less emotionally, financially, physically, psychologically. I think, even before Sheryl Crow popularized it, people already knew that if it makes them happy it can’t be that bad. And even if a person can justify that their choice was to benefit others it is still often mired by personal necessity, guilt, wrongful passions, skewed reasons, or just plain stupidity.

Seeming like yesterday, the voice of my shrink talking to me about choice still echoes strongly in my head. Having your emotions swing in a pendulum was hard and we were discussing this when he said, “Feeling angry is not wrong. How you manifest your anger, however, is the question. How long you want to be angry is another thing. Remember this always... You have the power to choose. Even your emotions. It doesn’t mean that if you are in an infuriating situation being angry is wrong. But you can choose not to be. You can choose how long you will be. You can choose to make your anger productive instead of destructive. You have the power to choose.” It was a stupefying revelation. All those years that you’ve lived without having to choose anything and then you are told you can choose. It felt liberating. It felt intimidating. It felt overwhelming. Because it is easy to choose. But it’s difficult to choose the right things at the expense of your own personal convenience or comfort.

Some weeks ago, I’ve made one of the poorest and lousiest choice in my life. It’s the kind of choice you cringe remembering and you’ll remember for the rest of your life. The most convenient option for me was to shut up and live with it. But I couldn’t. Being fully aware that I’ve made the wrong choice and it’s hurting someone else made me edgy as my conscience picked on my brain and my heart. It got to a point when I had to choose again between the pain of discipline or the pain of regret, both options neither palatable nor beneficial to me and so was the possibility of the person who trusted me will despise me.

Last week, I exercised my freedom to choose and that time I chose the right thing. I lost my friend after doing it. It’s been some days now and I am slowly able to recover from that ordeal. A part of me wish this will be the end of it, but we can never forget the ones we fail. Overall, it's about taking responsibility of our choices, learning from sacrifice. Because even if we are free to choose, there is a price on the consequences of the choices we’ve made. But the price we pay are still up to us to decide on. Whether we choose to regret later or hurt now, enjoy this moment or work double time eventually, provide self-satisfaction or be self-sacrificing is our choice.

It's the hard lessons that shape us and how we respond that determines we who we are and how we will become. I don't believe any person has lived their life without them ever regretting anything. But how we choose to live our lives after we've failed is within us. And that, I think, is the ultimate meaning of the power of choice.