Why Make Choices for Everything That’s in Your Life’s Paths?
Because when you make choices, you take control.
From the moment you wake up, you’re making choices in and for your life’s paths.
Hit the snooze or get out of bed? Pee or feed the cats? Drink a glass of water or start the coffee? Shower now, later, or not at all?
Though they might seem utterly mundane and insignificant – they still matter. Why? Because they’ll impact everything else you do today.
Hit snooze, and you might doze off and run late as such. Don’t shower? You might find you offend yourself with your body odor later in the day and make choices based on that. All choices accumulate, and all the little choices you make day in and day out add up to bigger things.
What’s more, when you choose not to choose, you cede control. That means that the unexpected can easily sneak up on you and catch you flatfooted.
True, that can happen even when you make choices. But when you don’t, it’s going to be more difficult. Why? Because if you’ve been living by rote, routine, and habit – subconsciously – choices have still been made. They were just passive.
Until a thing occurs that brings them to your conscious awareness.
Not making choices is a choice. But it’s one of cessation of control to happenstance and circumstances.
That might be just fine sometimes. But, again, it all accumulates. Eventually, not choosing has consequences.
The consequences of not choosing
What are the consequences that occur when you don’t make choices? That depends on you, your life, and how those unmade choices impact your experience.
Sometimes it’s immediate in the face of something happening. When you didn’t choose to pursue that goal – and your coworker did and gets promoted – that’ll impact you in that moment.
Other times, it comes on slowly but ineffably. A sense of regret, dissatisfaction, longing, and lamenting this, that, or the other thing you didn’t choose. When you wistfully reflect on a choice you didn’t make, its impact can lead to discontent and regret.
You and I each get one shot in our bodies. That means you get one shot at this life experience. And it is an experience. But what that looks like is a reflection of the choices you do and don’t make.
Big or small, choices have an impact. Sometimes it’s not felt until later. Other times, it hits you quickly. Sometimes it has both impacts.
For example, on November 30, 1999, I chose to walk the quarter mile to the post office rather than drive. That choice ended up with me getting hit by a car crossing a street. And that’s why I spent weeks in a hospital, then a rehab hospital, and had multiple surgeries. Now I have 3 titanium plates holding my right clavicle together and a fused tibia/fibula in my right leg.
This is an extreme example, of course. But not choosing means you place limitations on your life experiences.
When you make choices, the outcome is always variable
The choice I made that November afternoon would impact my life in ways I had no idea it could. All I thought I was choosing was between getting some exercise or being lazy.
While it sucked a lot at the time, the net impact of that choice has been positive. How? Because I came to understand how fragile life is, that the unexpected can and will hit you (maybe literally), and making the most of this experience called life is more worthwhile than merely enduring it.
Who I am today is a result of that choice. And that’s something I see as having been beneficial.
Not all choices are going to have that sort of impact. But there will always be an outcome. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes indifferent as fuck.
But choosing to make choices is empowering. Because you decide that you will act to do something. Maybe it’s getting out of bed and choosing the gym over goofing off online. At the time, you might not like that choice’s outcome. But later, when you feel better physically, mentally, and emotionally – the outcome shows its worth to you.
The inconsequential is never inconsequential when actively chosen. Because active choice gives you control.
You, and you alone, control your head, heart, and soul. You’re the only one in control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. Yes, they might be influenced by outside forces – but they’re yours to drive and control.
When you don’t choose to take control, you disempower yourself.
Living passively disempowers you
It’s far too easy to live passively. Between distractions like streaming services, social media, and smartphones, we increasingly put off or neglect to make choices.
Some of these are big, some small. But size matters not. This is about living passively rather than living actively.
I believe that a lot of the reason why we have the mental health crises we do today stems from not making choices. Or more specifically, only making choices passively.
Look at how many people don’t vote. What about all the people who refuse to form opinions on important topics? How many people do you know who are miserable in their jobs, relationships, families, homes, and the like? How much of that misery stems from not actively making choices?
When you choose not to actively make choices you cede your power. And your control. Then, you find yourself discontent, distressed, anxious, and depressed.
Some might tell me I’m being unfair. Perhaps. But is life ever fair? No, not really. But how you approach it – positively or negatively, actively or passively, with trepidation or zeal – informs your experience. But nobody teaches you that in school – that’s only a result of life experience.
And – it’s a result of making choices.
Making choices is your superpower
The vast majority of the rest of the animal kingdom on this planet largely cares only about food, shelter, survival, and propagation of the species. Humans, however, can make far deeper and more complex choices.
No other animal has the devices you’re reading this on. There aren’t other animals who can choose jobs around the globe, what environment to live in, or communicate instantly with anyone anywhere. That most unique quality in humanity has all been built from active choices made.
Actively making choices empowers you. And that’s a superpower you can control to impact what kind of day, week, year, and overall life you will have.
Yes, random happenstance and the unexpected will occur. But when you make choices, you can control what results from these.
You are so very much more powerful than you realize. Making choices actively, regularly, employs your power. And that can show you what paths in life and other options are available.
Sometimes, yes, making choices passively is a respite. But frequent passive choosing rather than making choices actively disempowers you.
Wouldn’t you use superpowers if you had them? Making choices is a superpower. And you get to choose to actively use it to benefit your life every day. Put on your super suit and go kick boldly down your chosen path.
Do you actively make choices on a regular basis?
This is the five hundred and eighty-first exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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