Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Life is rife with decisions to be made.
I’m currently reading through the many books written by Terry Pratchett, quite enjoyable and very much a poke in the eye of life, society, government, and human relations.
An interesting belief found commonly among the wizards of the Unseen University and witches as well as even some among the City Guard, is that life is like a pair of trousers. You make a decision and you go down one leg of the trouser while at the same time another or alternate you goes down the other leg of the trousers. A variation on this is the idea that there are in existence an infinite number of you living out an infinite number of paths and choices made. Expanding on this is the notion that any decision you make is the right one and never fear any alternate choices you did not make are being played out someplace. Consequently it really doesn’t matter what your choice is what matters it you do something.
Sometimes the choices we have are not always ideal. There may be times when our choice needs to be made between two or more bad options. It can’t be helped. The causes we have made previously are now manifesting as a limited range of poor options. This is not the fault of something outside ourselves though we may wish to believe otherwise and even may act otherwise.
All life is a never ending series of actions to be carried out. Breathing is an action of the our lungs inhaling and then exhaling. There is a belief the the out-breath is the breath of death. It is the last breathing action our bodies will perform. The out-breath is the breath that is guaranteed. The lungs will collapse upon death and the air inside will be exhaled. The in-breath is the breath of life, it is only because we are alive that we are able to take an in-breath. The next in-breath is not promised to us, however your next out breath is certain.
Breathing is just one of my actions we engage in every moment of our lives. Some of the actions happen automatically or without any conscious mental effort. Other actions may require us to consider the doing. What will I have for dinner, what clothes shall I wear, shall I go shopping or instead stay home and read a book? These and countless other decisions we make throughout a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. We make some of the decisions over and over again endlessly.
When I was in the 11th grade our family didn’t have much money. I was working part-time while going to high school and the little money I made I was trying to save for college. That year because of those economic factors I only had two shirts to wear. Yes I probably could have spared the money to buy a couple more, yet it seemed like a frivolous expense. And so I would wear the same shirt every other day, both of them were madras shirts and so they actually almost looked identical. Of course I hoped no one would notice that I was wearing the same shirts every day.
They did notice and most people said nothing. A couple of folks commented and asked why I was wearing the same shirts all the time. I felt slightly embarrassed even as I explained I didn’t have money for any more shirts. Strangely the end result was my standing in school grew and more people began to like me. I was asked to join a secret high school fraternity, one only the special kids belonged to. It was kind of unsettling in that all the things you would think you need to do to be cool, didn’t really need to be done. You just needed to be as authentic and real as you possibly can. Crazy huh?
Why did I bring this up here, you may wonder. Well, our activities are in fact impacted by our power and ability to carry out certain activities. My resources were limited and so the options for various actions were limited. That in turn affected the causes I was making, even causes I wasn’t aware I was making. Further more those actions impacted my environment.
Now maybe it wasn’t just the two shirts, maybe it was my nature, my honesty, my embarrassment, maybe folks just felt sorry for me. And I know the story doesn’t always end favorably, not for everyone. There are after all a myriad of possibilities, and infinite number of universes, two legs to a trouser.
Regardless, our decisions, and our actions are all impacted by our power to carry out those decisions and actions. This in turn will have an effect on our causes and our environment.
Our power can be limited in any number of ways, and often due to the nature of the thing requiring our action. Sometimes our will power is not sufficient to cary out the actions we know would be in our best interest. It is times like this when our congruence is not aligned. This is an invitation to us, though we may not wish to accept it, to examine what is causing the disconnect.
It might be that our thoughts about what we should do or what would be the best action is more shallow than we suspect. Perhaps, and often most likely the case is we have only a superficial desire to do the best thing. That is a rather harsh personal assessment, because we want to think we are good people always acting in perfect accord with our best intentions to achieve and optimal life with minimal suffering. Perhaps a person my then lean to thinking they are weak-willed.
I wouldn’t put such a label on it as being weak-willed. I think it might be more like not-fully-willed, partially-willed. While one part of our mind knows fully well what would be the best course of action, another part hasn’t quite made the same commitment. So not all the parts of your-self, your mind are in full accord or agreement with each other.
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