Choice

 

November 23, 2020

 Greetings from my friend Viktor,

 Before I write the words that have been waiting, I want to assure you of my amateur status in this field of human endeavor.  I come to you this morning not to pontificate, but to congregate.

 Here is the first truth: We are faced with more choices in our lives than any humans in existence.  No matter what you believe about our ancestors, that’s an impressive milestone.  I have friends who will remind me that we don’t all have the same choices, that some are limited because of where they were born or their gender or the color of their skin.  Granted, and yet in almost every circumstance the first truth still stands. 

 Where to live.  What to do for a living. What to read. Where to travel.  How to worship.  Who to marry.  How to start over. What to eat. How to heal the world.  What to learn.  How to raise your child.  Who to elect.  What to watch on Netflix.  What kind of coffee to drink.

 And, please help me, all the things to buy.  Walk the aisles of any store and see the vast varieties of toothpaste and socks and screwdrivers and cheese.  Consider the choices of stores to visit, then multiply that times google when you consider the internet.  You can’t just consider your choices, because you’re being prompted to wonder about other choices you haven’t seen yet.

 With all of this richness of choice, we become confounded.  Too often we face a path in the woods that not only diverges, but forks again and again, often leading to the first bifurcation.  We are changed by it.  It can lead to a sense of dissatisfaction, to second guessing and regrets or worse, to a paralysis of sorts. 

 Here’s the second truth; I’m writing this in a time when many of you feel also as if too many choices have been taken from you.  You feel unsettled, you want your life back, the other life with the unrestricted access to every choice you would dream of and those yet devised for you by some algorithm.  So even in the tsunami of choices you have, you sense the loss of choice.  Hm.

 ‘Choice’ is a rich word, filled with burden, beauty, baggage, history, hope.  Like other words we invented to express something, once it’s in our common language, we take it for granted.  We become numb to the meaning and the purpose of it.  Say it ten times without stopping, feel how annoying it is. 

 Here is where we can help each other.  Even surrounded with nearly unlimited alternatives, we may overlook the choices that will free us from the restlessness that the other decisions give us.

First, a note from my friend Viktor Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  It is an important message.  It reminds me of the fundamental power in all of our lives, which we sometimes overlook. 

 I found some notes from a presentation I did over fifteen years ago, to a group of bankers who undoubtedly have long since forgotten.   It was the same theme I presented just last week to my staff.   I was surprised that I have been saying these same things for all this time and I still have to be reminded.  I won’t share it all here, but the essence is this:

 Choose your direction.  Think about where you believe you want to go.  

Choose your habits.  Select the behavior that will with time become habits, that support your direction.

Choose your attitude.  Don’t allow circumstances to dictate how you will feel, choose it for yourself.  This is where you begin, each day, to form the tenor of your life.

In every choice give yourself grace, and don’t hold out for perfection.

 I know it may seem squishy, maybe it doesn’t help while you are trying to make up your mind about whether to make green been casserole or sweet potatoes, or both.  But consider it, before you have to make any other choices today.  Begin with asking yourself what your ideal attitude today would be.

 Armed with the attitude you choose, all things become different, no matter what challenges, or mistakes in choosing, come your way.  If you choose gratitude, for example, you become more resilient all day.  You do not fear other decisions near as much because you first feel grateful, and in that place you are stronger no matter what outcomes you face. 

 I began by describing the strange irony we experience; the overwhelming vastness of choice, and inside that, this sliver of time where some choices are taken away.  Both affect us, but only to the degree we allow.  We choose. 

 “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”  Viktor E. Frankl

 My closest friends will recognize I am writing this note to myself, to restore something I let slip.  I am bringing you along in this conversation because in some ways it helps to profess your choice out loud, laces a bit of courage in there.  And, perhaps, there are one or more of you that needed to be reminded too.  What you do with that is of course your choice.

  

Hope this finds you in the space between,

 

David

 

 

 

Copyright © 2020 David Smith