To Choose

Are we really able to choose? Or is it an illusion, the end result of numerous often unconscious or little conscious influences? If everything in this universe is liable to the chain of cause and effect, is then our choice not but a result, fixed in advance, even if we doubted our choice for years? That’s philosophers stuff. In quantum physics it is evident not everything is but a case of cause and effect, we know Heisenberg’s improbability concept. But physicians like to draw a line between our daily world and the world of the extreme small.

Nevertheless, what counts is: are you able to choose? Is it easy for you or difficult? Do you always have the bad feeling you could make the wrong choice? Or are you someone who decides quickly and afterwards looks at the result? Perhaps you prefer not to choose and ask others what they would do in your situation? Don’t you experience choosing as a need? Or do you prefer to keep everyone away from your doubts or choices? Or is there a balance between both?

An article in SA explained choosing is connected with feeling. Without feeling we are not able to make choices. Do you let your feelings play a role in your choice? Or too much: is your choice determined by your dominant feeling? Or is there a balance between common sense and feeling when you make a choice? Perhaps you always experience that duality: when you listen to your mind, you choose A, but your feelings tell you to take B? Which pole wins the game? Or is there a harmony between those two poles?

Is your choice really yours? Or do you have the feeling, for making a decision, you prefer the judgement of somebody else? Can you really listen to somebody’s advice, without letting you be overawed, so it still stays your choice? Do you leave an important decision to an authority: father or mother, mayor, lawyer, scientist, politician? Do you believe them unconditionally? Does your conscience plays a role in your decision? A small or a large? Do you sometimes push the role of the decider in the hands of somebody else, or you try at least to do that?

Is your choice always new? Or is it the logical proceeding of your past? Do you have confidence in your decisions? Is in your opinion your decision always right, if it is well thought about, because it is your own choice? When it turns out not to be the best choice, you did learn something, isn‘t it? We never know if the other choice would have been so much better. Or are you obsessed by what you did not choose? Do you always regard this as a lost opportunity? To say otherwise: do you accept the fact you really háve to make choices?

© Copyright Johan Framhout 2009