Choice Choices

So here we are. As I have sat to write this, so you have begun to read.  I don’t know what your day is like, how you came to this particular blog post, or what lead you here.

But I do know, that however it happened, you made the choice to read, and more importantly, I made the choice to write, otherwise you couldn’t have chosen to read this!

A good friend of mine loaned me a book called “The Shack” by William P Young.  I won’t blow the plot of the story for you, other than to say it was a very good read – and quite alternative in its plot.  One thing that I do want to explore further though, is a theme thoughout the book about “choices”.

The character “Papa” in the book says something along the lines of the fact that because they had choice, and they chose one particular course of action, meant that they were not limited in that choice – which for me, made me stop and re-read that section, because surely, by choosing, we are limiting ourselves to one course of action – therefore – limited?

It would be like this bird, whose nature it is to fly, choosing only to walk and remain grounded.  He doesn’t stop being the bird, but it does alter his experience of life significantly.

Whilst I realise that the mentioned book is a work of Fiction, I personally found this bit intriguing and liberating.  I realised that by having choice available to us, even though we may only choose one course of action, by making that choice – we are unlimited!  So, what if having choice actually means we are ‘unlimited’?  Could it be the fact that we can recognise we have that choice?  Whether we choose to take it, or not, is a different matter.  We have choice and because we have that choice, we are, limitless.  In fact, whether we choose to recognise that there is a choice, or that there is no choice, is in itself  – another choice – so however you look at it, there are choices all over the place!

(At the time of reading this part of the book for the third time, a tiny butterfly was bouncing against the window of the bedroom I was in.  As I sat and let that paragraph I’d just read sink in, whilst watching the butterfly, it landed on the window and opened it’s wings – to reveal a smiley face looking at me, with the sun behind it!  I could have chosen to see just a butterfly, or, followed my choice to see the smiling face through the butterfly!).

Take the choices I have open to me regarding earning money to support my lifestyle for instance:

• I could choose to join a circus as a musician.
• I could choose to find a more permanent type “office job”.
• I could choose to find a job as a gardener.
• I could choose to go back to college and get another qualification to take me in (yet) another direction.
• I could choose to continue with my current plan (which is that I could choose to follow my spirit, my oxygen and have lots of ways to earn money!).

All of these choices have their pro’s and cons – but, these are just some of the choices available to me.  The fact that I only chose one of them, means that I have chosen from lots of unlimited choices.

The television advertisement for recycling has just sprung to mind “The possibilities are endless!”.  And they are.  They may not all be practical – but there is choice available.

What good though, is choice, when none of the other choices open to us are practical, or palatable?

Good question – what good indeed.  This is only my opinion, and, like noses opinions are as common in the fact that 99.999% of people have one .

By realising we have a choice, we realise that we actually may be somewhat aware of the Cause and Effect equation in our lives.  (Edit: this will be covered in a post soon, but in brief – do you wait for things to happen to you – (if you’re on the effect side), or do you cause things to happen around you?!).

Maybe the choices you see around you, you feel are not practical or palatable to you right now and they more seem a hindrance to your every day life.  But maybe too – by being aware of those choices, more choices will come from them, and soon – maybe sooner than you think, you will get other practical workable choices in which to realise your limitless-ness!

Choice means change, and change unnerves us, all those things that are unfamiliar are scary.  However, the paradox is, that choice/change, is the only familiar thing we have constantly around us.  Even the choice to make a decision on a choice, or to let it remain the same – is still a choice!  All these things that are outside of our current parameters of “normality”, and that which is unfamiliar to us can be frightening, unnerving and uncomfortable.  And it is for this reason, perhaps, that sometimes the only choices we perceive ourselves to have are so impractical to us, that the very impracticality of it keeps us within our status quo – of “here is all there is”.

What if, the ONLY thing that caused you to think that, was that bit of you that is fighting to keep things the same?  As I’ve said before, every behaviour has a positive intention, and the positive intention behind this behaviour – is that which is familiar, won’t hurt us.  That’s the survival part of us that keeps things the same, keeps things safe, keeps us surviving.

I’m not suggesting that you make a huge radical change in your life to ‘fight’ against this behaviour, because by resisting what it’s doing, it will actually persist.  By accepting that part of us that wants things to remain the same, to keep us safe, and acknowledging the job it’s doing, maybe then, other choices will become apparent to us?

And do you know what’s really amazingly mindblowing? You have a choice right now.  You do!  You can choose to completely disregard this article, you may choose to think it’s all “fooey” and “tree hugging hippy-stuff”, (which is ok with me if you do!), or, you can choose to let it sit with you a while, and begin to notice the choices around you which you may not have noticed previously!

So – what choices do you notice now that you didn’t notice before?