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Life is a series of decisions, choices, actions. What to wear today, what to eat, who to call, where to go at night, when to take time off, where to go for vacation, what to get so and so for their birthday. Then there are the big ones. Where do I want to be in 5 years? Am I doing what I should be doing? Am I inspired? Am I happy? What do I want out of today, tomorrow, next week? Should I move? Should I stay? Should I say yes? Should I say no?
Should we choose with our heart or our head? Or just take the plunge...cover your eyes, pinch your nose and leap?
I don't think there are right or wrong choices, they are just choices. Even if something ends up not working out, it doesn't mean it was wrong. It just wasn't right persay. But then again, it's all experiences, learning more about yourself, your likes, dislikes, wants, needs. So can it ever really be a wrong choice?
1 comment:
Yes. I like the Woodrow Wilson quote that we grow by dreams and that some of us let these dreams die while others nurse them through bad days until we bring them to sunshine. I also like the saying that young talent later in life can become wasted potential. How do dreams die and how does talent get wasted? Wrong choices.
Even if you were the type of person to live moment to moment on a lifelong quest of self discovery and the ability to say, "I am happy now" and to pick yourself up and start over, your life is not merely a series of moments but, as Einstein put it, the continuous ticking of a clock winding down to zero. As it winds down, we experience times of frustration, disappointment and regret. Often this is the result of choices made.
Add to this a non-moral or even achievement oriented framework, that though one might learn from disappointment, frustration and regret, no one wants to live or die with regret and you can begin to understand why some choices are wrong choices. They lead to dead dreams, wasted talent and regret.
But I too get lost in my head. Sometimes I feel like I live in my head and only make occasional contact with the physical world. The question for me too is what to believe in. What is my dream?
My clinical opinion is that the spiral of thought is the inability to handle uncertainty. We humans face uncertainty but don't really understand that we are not physically equipped to deal with it. Our brains just don't process certain stimuli very well.
Some deal with uncertainty by developing strong beliefs (as in a god). They cleave to such beliefs as if clinging to a lifeline in hopes that they will be guided to safety.
But those us for whom this is beyond our capacities have no such lifeline. Our tendency is to let go, to wander off to find, or make the world, a better place and at times to get lost in a spiral. What I think we're really saying is that instead of a lifeline we need a framework within which to build our lives; a framework that supports us, validates our existence and most importantly keeps us grounded.
The choices of which framework to choose can add even more uncertainty and cause more spiraling. Without the wherewithal to know how to construct one ourselves we can end up constructing complex justifications for why we need to keep searching for a new framwork that fits us better. This in turn causes us to keep searching and searching and spiraling and spiraling.
My personal view is that the idea that there are no wrong choices is just a justifcation to keep searching. So the answer for me is that someday you will know that you searched and did not find and this will lead to disappointment and regret. The wrong choice was that you kept searching when the right choice may have been to build the supportive framework you needed to be who you are and to allow you to accomplish your dreams.
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