So you make your "free choice", basing it on research, experience, opinions, learning, gut feelings, and desire.
How do you know you are actually going to get what you "choose"?
What if your "choice" turns out not to be a "choice" you wanted?
What if your "choice" is what you wanted but the ramifications and results are not what you would have "chosen"?
Do you make new "choices" to fix your bad "choice"? Can you? Should you?
There are so many things out there that people "choose" to do/have.
Like children. They "chose" to have a child or several. But they really don't get a "choice" of what kind of child they are going to have. The child could be a boy or girl, it could be healthy or unhealthy, it could have cognitive disabilities or mental disabilities, it could be tall or short, it could be fat or thin, it could be mellow or moody, it could be generous or mean, it could have alot or a little common sense, it could be neat or messy, it could be stoic or a whiner, it could be wonderful or it could be a menace. Or any combo of things. But the point is, parents do not "choose" what their child will be like. Sure they have hopes and dreams but they can't make those a reality no matter how much parenting, training, nurturing, and medication goes into the child. Oh, some parents luck out and get exactly what they would have "chosen" for a child, but most parents have to temper their hope-and-dream child with the reality child - they get some of what they would "choose" but then they also get things they would never have "chosen". I'm not saying these compromised parents don't love their kiddos, they do, they just didn't get what they thought they were "choosing" when they "chose" to have a child.
Then there are the ramifications of having the child they "chose" to have. Parents know they will have to make sacrifices, changes, and their lives will forever be different. But do they really "choose" the loss of freedom, the fatigue, the financial cost, the emotional toll, the spiritual roller coaster, the constant worry, the value judgements, the picking battles, the cat in the dryer, the firecracker in the toilet, the suspension from school, the broken bones, the serious illnesses, the fear that things will get beyond their "choice" control?
They never had control over their "choices" in the first place.
You don't have control over your "choices" when you "choose" to have a child, take a new job, start a relationship, get married, get divorced, move, fly in a plane, drive a car, walk out your door, wake up in the morning, fall asleep.
For that matter, we didn't "chose" to be in the body we're in (sorry all of you who believe in self-directed reincarnation). We don't "choose" to have poor eyesight, bad backs, weak ankles, predisposition to being overweight, arthritis, brittle bones, migraines, catching the flu or common cold, diarrhea, asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or get cancer. We don't "choose" to get old and we don't "choose" to die.
Having "choices" made for us is scary isn't it?
1 comment:
I couldn't agree with you more. You raise some valid and interesting points. One makes choices all day long, and the outcome of those choices is independent of what you want. It is all a matter of making the best of the results. As you said, the child you choose to have isn't the child you get. People are "justifying machines" - I was reading an interesting study on that yesterday, which seems to tie into your blog post.
People with split hemispheres - when researches get them to raise their arm, only one side knows why it was done. The other side of the brain just sees it happening and makes up a reason for what it sees. For example, the researcher asks for left hand to be raised, then asks the person's left hemisphere why the hand is up and the person will say things like: "I was pointing at something." or "There was a fly I was waving away."
People make choices, then justify that the outcome was what they had really wanted. So why make choices in the first place? Why not follow a Zen path? All choices are equally valid - there is no difference.
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