By Lois E. Wilson
As we proceed through life, we have many choices to make. These are often difficult to consider and decide. Epictetus observed, “It is your own conviction which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.”
Dostoevsky thought, “What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.”
During our childhood years, having independent choice is rare. Our parents are ultimately responsible for our activities—good and bad. We have little input in decisions such as financial expenditures, where we might live, our schools, and choice of friends.
When we reach the appropriate age for making choices about our goals, interests, spending money, education, and careers, if we feel knowledgeable and comfortable about such situations, we may make our own choices. These could improve our lives and advance us toward reaching self-goals.
At some time in your life, you may regret an outcome of your selections and exclaim, “But I didn’t have any choice!” The answer is “Of course you did!”
Each personal decision made is a choice: yes or no, good or bad, right or wrong, etc. It is a choice which likely is a culmination of those before. It adds to your legacy another chain of choices you’ve selected. These choice chains are there the rest of our lives; they interweave and influence future decisions.
Andre Gide observed: “Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow’s joy is possible only if today’s makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.”
“We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force on us a choice between the comforts of further inertia and the irksomeness of action.” (Learned Hand}
Don’t forget–
Ask yourself, have my choice chains in life given me the knowledge and courage to succeed and be a trailblazer? Let today’s receding waves give us the strength and will to see the beauty of the paths which lie ahead.