Choices
A most powerful word is choice. Enabled by logic and/or emotion.
A most liberating and symbolic word is choice.
It implies and indicates freedom. Freedom to choose.
An act of wilful decisiveness. A consciously invoked option. A driven desire pursued.
We all — pretty much — get what is meant by choice. We know what our choices are in the majority of situations we face.
So when a word keeps cropping up in a range of conversations with different people about different things it gets you thinking. And you can choose to do something about that or not. Before you choose you may want to analyse some more — in fact, you make the choice to analyse.
You choose to ask “Why is that word cropping up all the time?” You choose to think into the word — “Is there something about this word that is puzzling me or is it me and others?”
You choose to think about the context — “Is it the contextual situations where this word is bound to come up?”
And you choose to throw your own self-awareness or bias at it “Is it you noticing the word so you’re using it more deliberately and it is shaping those conversations?”
You can choose to answer these questions and still choose to do something or nothing about your deductions or your desires.
I’ve chosen to write a short piece about choice. Because that word kept coming up this week in totally different situations.
Here’s a few situations that show just how much choice we have in our lives.
Choice 1 — Follow an emotional response.
It was the Google memo. I refuse to call it a manifesto as some have. That’s an all-too elegant word for something I felt angered and challenged by. I researched it some more. Read other people’s views and comments on it. I chose to be more informed on it. I felt the need to appreciate all angles in this. I felt clearer, at peace with it and a sense of what I believed to be good and bad about that situation.
Choice 2 — Reflect on loops, friends and connections.
I’m a little out of the loop on things I was once very much a part of. I’ve shifted my focus somewhat and I’ve found running a sole-trader business a little harder these past 2 years. Partly because of choices I’ve made, some of which haven’t worked out as planned and partly because of choosing to be more committed to people and clients.
I realised I made some choices. I’ve chosen to withdraw somewhat. I’ve chosen to step back from some connections and I’ve chosen to step into connections with others. I’ve chosen things I value — energy, impact, belief, positivity, earthiness, hope — I’ve become more choosy about what I need from people and what I think I can give to other people.
I reflected some more and realised that in the recent past, I don’t feel I was making the right choices about other people. I was choosing to see only good intent and I don’t believe that was always the case. When I sensed something colder in their way towards me, I chose to overlook it. This time I chose to face it and think into it.
People had clearly made some choices about me and I reflected on what I thought those were. Not all of them felt good, in my favour and others choices appeared to want to create distance not strengthen the connection.
If people I once felt a connection with were choosing to be “off” with me, what was behind that? Should I even care? Have I changed or done something to create that? I think these are quite normal reactions to once energetic connections with others. I chose to ask myself these questions and I chose to answer them very frankly in my head.
In answering, I’ve seen how things are. So I’ve chosen to respect others choices about me and dedicate even more of myself to those who have chosen to join in with me and chosen not to use emotional or intellectual energy on those who’ve made their choices about me and my work.
Choice 3 — The geo-political situation
It’s a lot easier now to be distracted by the world’s general mess in terms of politics. Worst situation in my lifetime. I’ve made a choice here too.
I’m choosing to follow my energy in terms of consuming, understanding and rationalising content, news and information.
I’m also choosing to stay out of online exchanges (especially with professional bots and astro turfers as they’re called) and instead report, block and generally mute their bile and poison.
Because that’s what a lot of these kinds of things are — mental, spiritual, even physical poison. Tiki-torch wielding or taunting-tweet utilising, it’s poisonous a lot of this. By not engaging I’m not letting them win. By reporting them I’m using mechanisms that mute and dilute their poison. It’s a new game this, I’m choosing to play it in a different way.
Sure I follow some threads and chats and see what their take on the world is and try to understand their points of view. And then I yield the mechanisms available to me that aren’t engaging and enraging them. Diluting their poison through the block, the report and the shut-down. Ok they might reappear some other way but I’m active in this way and that’s my choice to be like that.
Such people are choosing to be this political poison. Is it my role in the world to help them choose something else? I’m not sure it is. I’m sure my role is to keep creating the right kinds of energy, behaviours and philosophies in life which don’t include taking down others; more create better and eventually have people drop their current prejudices in favour of something they’ve chosen as better, tolerant and more harmonious.
Choice 4 — The future
It’s a focus of mine — particularly about work — the future. Do I ignore the now? Of course not. I enjoy the now. Yet, I am, more enraptured by the future. The possibilities, the chances, the options.
I am choosing more of what I do to be about helping others to create a better future. Be that in education, work or life. Be it at an individual, organisational or systemic level.
I am choosing to turn my hopes, and the hopes of other people, into a better future.
Even if limited to 12 people around me, I think that’s a good thing for me and the world. 12 more supported, fulfilled, able, loved, admired, cared for, believed in, more joyful people.
I’m choosing a better future and closer connections to create a small patch of betterness in the world.
So I’m choosing
- hope
- stealth
- to be informed
- to get closer to those who count
- to tune in to my energy source and flow
- to devote to what’s in service of my needs
- to find others who feel and want similar things out of their life’s work.
I’m choosing to be who I am and do what I do with who I need.
I’m choosing choice.
