The universe is abundant and life an infinite range of possibilities. We can waltz or spin, go somewhere or nowhere, in joy or in turmoil. What we choose to do, believe, pursue, love and engage with, is our world. Nothing defines us more than our choices.
No one can dictate what we choose - if they do, it is because we let them. Our circumstances may constrain us for a while, but we can always choose our perspective, how we cope, how hard we try, whether we stay.
Not choosing is a choice too - one of renunciation, that goals don't matter, that our perspective is irrelevant, or our actions have no effect. Actual choice is an action, a commitment, an identification of who we are with our decision. It means standing by our belief system, letting it known, making it real.
Possibilities are infinite and overwhelming, until it becomes clear that to survive, we need to pick something, anything is better than pointless gesticulation.
Choosing requires connection to our inner world, the real us, and to dare letting it come out, gradually, to let it inhabit our life. It takes effort, to turn our choices into our reality, but in the end, this is how we create our life.
The need to make a decision comes with a sense of urgency, a notion that we can't go on the way it is, or that inaction will result in trouble.
Yet, hasty decisions can cause more trouble, more liability, more weight to carry. Giving ourselves permission to consider options and align ourselves with a preferred course of action makes for a genuine choice.
Haste means succumbing to the urgency, it is only grudge waiting to happen.
Most choices we make are just that, the election of an option over the alternatives.
They are not an attack, a stand, some contrary endeavour deserving of retaliation. Still, they may feel that way, like an exposure to hostile circumstances yet to be uncovered.
The rawness of our stepping up to what matters to us feels vulnerable, makes us vigilant towards criticism, impeding responses, or plain attacks... Yet to the world, we are only someone who played a card.
Choosing means coming out of hiding, revealing our intentions, what matters to us, which includes exposing ourselves to criticism.
Then, those assets and convictions that gave us a sense of safety and solidity are put to the test. It may be that our decision meets resistance or submission, approval or resentment, confusion or relief.
We can't know until we state our case, and even then, our hand is still our hand, it is what we have, and we'd better believe what we're saying.
What we sign up for is our idea of the promise. When others agree with us, they agree with their idea of what we are saying. What words agree and disagree with are our concepts of the reality they signal.
All in all, we never know whether we are on the same page until we set ourselves in motion. Then we realise we’re not dancing the same dance, we were speaking in tongues the whole time.
And we’re left with a new choice; whether or not to figure it out, and find common flow in action.
A choice is but wishful thinking until we act by it. Not just by 'putting it out there', but by diving into the work, getting our hands dirty, and re-making that choice, decision after decision.
Every step of the way asks us to define, in this instance, what our choice looks like. It takes discernment, commitment, willingness to be wrong and try again.
It is much more than we statement we issue, it is an unwavering march towards embodiment, shaping an experience of their meaning.
Whether we pursue our choices into isolation or impose our choices to others into alienation, our decisions can tyrannise us, or turn us into dictators.
Whether or not others comply is not the point. If the stars don't align, if our choices do not connect us to the creation, we are on the wrong track.
This connection is not binding, a restraint, or shackle, it is voluntary, like conductors just need contact to let the current flow.
Deciding
Break-through
Resoluteness
Decisiveness