Choice and Openings

I find it challenging choosing whether to go through an Opening. I can’t predict the outcome and there are always a lot of unknowns.

The Importance of Acknowledging Choice

Our choices set the course of our lives. Once we make a choice, we live with it. How we approach making choices has a dramatic impact on our quality of life. We can make conscious, considered choices, or have choices made for us by default. Each choice has its positives and negatives. It’s up to us to determine what we want to do when an Opening appears.

Choice is a powerful tool in creating the life we want to live. We must make choices consciously and deliberatively. Making choices that are good for us requires focus and discernment. We need to have a sense of where we want to go – of how we want our lives to be. We must also affirm our own “agency” and not cede control of our lives to others or to the conditions that surround us. Once we make a choice, we live with it.

Choice by default cheats us of autonomy over our own lives. Choice by default doesn’t look out for our interests. It happens because we fail to act. We leave our lives to chance. Fear often hampers choice. We fear the consequences of a choice and we look away. Choice cannot be ignored successfully. We may try to avoid making choices, but they will be made, with or without us.

It’s Up to Us

Once we accept the importance of acknowledging choice, we can set about developing the ability to make good ones. Considered choices involve many factors including: studying the choice before us – its implications for our lives, understanding what is involved in the choice and possible outcomes. Good choices are deliberate and carefully made.

Here are some steps we can take when a choice is before us:

• Define and acknowledge the choice that is before us. For example, an unexpected job offer is made, and the choice is whether to accept or say no to the offer.
• Look carefully and independently at the elements of the choice. For example, at the current job and the one just offered. Define what each choice will mean to our life and whether we want what each choice offers to us.
• Examine the impacts each choice will have on our life. What will change? How will life be different? Who around us will be impacted?
• Figure out what must be done to be ready to make the choice – research, thinking it out, talking with others or building courage.
• Make the choice with as much confidence as possible, accepting that there are unknowns in any choice
• Accept that the choice has been made and handle any challenges that come along with grace and acceptance.

Good Choices

Good choices always involve risks and unknowns. Accept this up front. Getting comfortable with the inevitable presence of the unknown in our life, helps us in making choices. We may not know what the full outcome of a choice is going to be. We can make the best choice possible knowing that there may be some surprises or unexpected outcomes.

Good choices take life in the direction we want to go in. Living a fulfilling life involves making choices on an ongoing basis. We make numerous small choices every day. However, Openings tend to involve significant choices requiring carful consideration on our part. When an Opening appears we look at what it is offering us and whether we want to walk through it.

To make good choices, we must know where we want our life to go. This requires self-examination, emotional intelligence and self-awareness. Goals are helpful as is knowing our values and honoring them in every choice we make. Good choices are never based on fear. They are based on self-knowledge and wanting the best for our life.