Choices
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Be careful how you make your decisions because, your decisions will make you!
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Be careful how you make your decisions because, your decisions will make you!
Perhaps one the most fundamental characteristics of being human is our propensity and desire to choose. In fact when we really think about it choice is so fundamental to being a conscious being, that it is impossible not to choose.
We have no choice but to choose!
Choice usually arises out of the complex inner workings of our habitual thought life. We choose from an array of factors using our reasoning, emotions, memories or simply out of recklessness. Choice is the way in which we identify and engage our gift of consciousness. Choices to love, hate, seek, hide, speak be quiet, pursue or retreat as well as our tastes are all indicative of our inner thought life. Perhaps, most of all whether or not we believe it, our choices are also what make us feel fully human. Choice empowers us. Unfortunately, making the best choices, even the obvious correct ones is no simple matter. Just go to the self-help section of any bookstore and you will encounter a myriad of prescriptions for ways in which to think and succeed through our freedom to choose. Religion is largely built on the premise of making correct choices and their is certainly not much simplicity there. Some choices are cumulative while others are irremediable in nature. The relationship between our thoughts and choices are integral to the human condition and quality of life.
Little choices we make habitually can change the quality of our life substantially while other choices will send us on a road or trajectory from which there is no turning back.
Additionally, how we perceive our world and our role in it is likewise determined largely whether or not we do or do not have freedom in our choices
Regardless if we like it or not our choices do cost us. Our choices will determine the quality of our life and ability to lead a life of purpose and how we pursue meaning.
We have no choice but to choose!
Choice usually arises out of the complex inner workings of our habitual thought life. We choose from an array of factors using our reasoning, emotions, memories or simply out of recklessness. Choice is the way in which we identify and engage our gift of consciousness. Choices to love, hate, seek, hide, speak be quiet, pursue or retreat as well as our tastes are all indicative of our inner thought life. Perhaps, most of all whether or not we believe it, our choices are also what make us feel fully human. Choice empowers us. Unfortunately, making the best choices, even the obvious correct ones is no simple matter. Just go to the self-help section of any bookstore and you will encounter a myriad of prescriptions for ways in which to think and succeed through our freedom to choose. Religion is largely built on the premise of making correct choices and their is certainly not much simplicity there. Some choices are cumulative while others are irremediable in nature. The relationship between our thoughts and choices are integral to the human condition and quality of life.
Little choices we make habitually can change the quality of our life substantially while other choices will send us on a road or trajectory from which there is no turning back.
Additionally, how we perceive our world and our role in it is likewise determined largely whether or not we do or do not have freedom in our choices
Regardless if we like it or not our choices do cost us. Our choices will determine the quality of our life and ability to lead a life of purpose and how we pursue meaning.
In the last chapter of his best selling book The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren has identified
"Life's Five Greatest Questions", They are:
What will be the center of my life?
What will be the character of my life?
What will be the contribution of my life?
What will be the communication of my life?
What will be the community of my life?
"Life's Five Greatest Questions", They are:
What will be the center of my life?
What will be the character of my life?
What will be the contribution of my life?
What will be the communication of my life?
What will be the community of my life?
Each of these questions leads to a choice. Those choices are the foundation of our purpose in life. Why we get up everyday and do the things we do. Even if we think we have made a choice not to have a life with a declared center, we will by default become our own center!
What is interesting about this list is the fact that one would be hard pressed to find something on it that is not as important to an atheist as it would be to a Christian. Our propensity to Choose is like meaning, it has something of a universal importance according to an inherent hierarchy. It seems that regardless if you are a believer or not, there are certain fundamental choices that we make in life, and depending on how we answer them, particularly in deed or action, those choices, will have a large influence on how we define our purpose and how we pursue and pursue meaning.
What is interesting about this list is the fact that one would be hard pressed to find something on it that is not as important to an atheist as it would be to a Christian. Our propensity to Choose is like meaning, it has something of a universal importance according to an inherent hierarchy. It seems that regardless if you are a believer or not, there are certain fundamental choices that we make in life, and depending on how we answer them, particularly in deed or action, those choices, will have a large influence on how we define our purpose and how we pursue and pursue meaning.
One way or the other
debtcrushingdad.com
"If you see a fork in the road take it!"
Yogi Berra
"There are always two choices. Two paths to take.
One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy."
Zig Zigler
"Everyone's life is driven by something."
Ric Warren The Purpose Driven Life p-27
Yogi Berra
"There are always two choices. Two paths to take.
One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy."
Zig Zigler
"Everyone's life is driven by something."
Ric Warren The Purpose Driven Life p-27
The relationship between choice & beliefs or values are profoundly integral to how we come determine if our life was lived in manner worthy of our dreams. The total sum of our choices will eventually result in something of an overall picture of what we have lived for, for better or worse. In other words, our choices will be, if not the most important, than one of the most important elements in the creation of our life story and what we will be remembered for. At some point in life, it is said, that we start looking through the rear view mirror more than looking ahead to the future through the windshield down the road of life. We spend more time reflecting on who & what we are, how we failed and what we have accomplished. If we are honest with ourselves. This is, particularly for young people, a very intimidating fact of life. That decisions we make even in our formative years can determine how we live our lives. For some this though can be paralyzing.
However, it should be understood that not choosing, procrastinating, and not following through on the intuitions and inklings of the heart is a choice as well.
Again, choosing not to choose - is a choice!
However, it should be understood that not choosing, procrastinating, and not following through on the intuitions and inklings of the heart is a choice as well.
Again, choosing not to choose - is a choice!
In between stuff
learntoprepare.com
"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval"
George Santayana
“I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.”
― Hermann Hesse goodreads.com
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
John Lennon
George Santayana
“I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.”
― Hermann Hesse goodreads.com
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
John Lennon
Is it possible that there are fundamentally two choices in how to pursue purpose and the meaning in life? If Yes, does this imply that life is not rich in experience and nearly unlimited in potential and capable of producing a profound array of possibility and freedom in how we live? Consider all of the different types of natural variations the Earth and creation itself offers, from cold to warm, mountains to beaches, plains, valleys, stars, planets and black holes Every environment offers unique beauties, possibilities, riches and challenges. Now consider the many variations of urban and rural living how various cities, towns and villages have their own unique characteristics. Moreover, there are all of the various cultural elements as well, that include language, art, politics, food, religion, and the plethora of characteristics that come to make one group of people and the places that they occupy different than another. Perhaps, we could likewise think of our immediate group of friends, neighbors and families as a world of choices as well. And, we have really just begun when we consider all of the learning that is available to us and the incredible amount of information that history and science offers alone. There is, quite literally, no end to learning. When we add it all up what we end up with is an incredible wealth of possibilities and opportunities to enrich our lives and perhaps achieve some sense of freedom and choice.
Not everyone considers this immense, even mind-boggling, array of freedoms to be comforting.
King Solomon was aware of this and wrote over three thousand years ago;
"Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."
Ecclesiastes 12:12
King Solomon was aware of this and wrote over three thousand years ago;
"Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."
Ecclesiastes 12:12
Barry Schwartz has noted just how the near unlimited choices and information available to us, and so quickly is not improving our sense of well-being but very possibly having a detrimental effect.
"There is no denying that choice improves the quality of our lives. It enables us to control our destinies and to come close to getting exactly what we want out of any situation. Choice is essential to autonomy, which is absolutely fundamental to well-being. Healthy people want and need to direct their own lives. on the other hand, the fact that some choice is good doesn't necessarily mean that more choice is better.....clinging tenaciously to all the choices available to us contributes to bad decisions, to anxiety, stress, and dissatisfaction-even to clinical depression."
Barry Schwartz The Paradox of Choice p-3
"There is no denying that choice improves the quality of our lives. It enables us to control our destinies and to come close to getting exactly what we want out of any situation. Choice is essential to autonomy, which is absolutely fundamental to well-being. Healthy people want and need to direct their own lives. on the other hand, the fact that some choice is good doesn't necessarily mean that more choice is better.....clinging tenaciously to all the choices available to us contributes to bad decisions, to anxiety, stress, and dissatisfaction-even to clinical depression."
Barry Schwartz The Paradox of Choice p-3
Choices within
impossible world
"Knowledge of the higher levels requires personal transformation, not seeing different things but seeing things differently."
The Search For Meaning
Dennis Ford p-209
"The mind presents each of us with two inner lives. One deals with the demands and joys of daily life, and one seeks the transcendental, the eternal aspect of our finite existence."
Physicist - Gerald L. Schroeder p- 180The Hidden Face of God
The Search For Meaning
Dennis Ford p-209
"The mind presents each of us with two inner lives. One deals with the demands and joys of daily life, and one seeks the transcendental, the eternal aspect of our finite existence."
Physicist - Gerald L. Schroeder p- 180The Hidden Face of God
There is perhaps no one human activity that connects the world of unseen thought with the physical world as clearly as choice. Sooner or later the meditations, passions, beliefs and desires of one's inner thoughts will surface in word and deed.
The choice that we make within, in the realm of our dreams, passions and beliefs can best be made meaningful through understanding that it is not just about us. Rather our thoughts and choices become truly meaningful and purposeful in the context of love.
The choice that we make within, in the realm of our dreams, passions and beliefs can best be made meaningful through understanding that it is not just about us. Rather our thoughts and choices become truly meaningful and purposeful in the context of love.
The Roots of choice
Pravsworld.com
"Many of our troubles occur because we base our choices on unreliable authorities: culture ("everyone is doing it"), tradition ("we've always done it"), reason ("it seemed logical"), emotion ("it just felt right"). All four of these are flawed .....What we need is a perfect standard that will never lead us in the wrong direction."
Rick Warren The Purpose Driven Life p-187
“perception shapes priorities, priorities shape people”
― Ben Thompson
Rick Warren The Purpose Driven Life p-187
“perception shapes priorities, priorities shape people”
― Ben Thompson
When we carefully assess our thoughts and beliefs concerning core values, the foundational truths pertaining to how we define and pursue meaning, there are not really many choices from which to start. In the process of living, and inevitably in the end, we will need to get a sense of how our choices will in a sense become the building blocks our model on how to define a purposeful life. This part of our quest for meaning involves our understanding of how others both understand reality and what they have chosen to believe about it, and in whom we decide has the best or most coherent perspective.
Though there is one way of avoiding this altogether. We can take the position that it does not really matter and the question of meaning is pointless. Not entirely different than the view that is common among atheist materialism. A view that we have all arrived on the scene of history haphazardly as a result evolutionary chance. In this view morality and purposeful living is really about the imposition of order on our world and at best meaning and a life of purpose is, in a sense, illusory, It is a view that is much more prominent that many are aware of. I have found in my discussions that many if not most people under thirty or so feel that this may very well be the reality we cannot avoid.
Some as of recent, have contextualized morality in as a collective expression of an evolutionary goal that we are all, because of our humanity are all vested in. In a sense such a position would declare that we should consider our responsibility to act according to the collective mandate. However, to view reality in this way is a choice which will inevitably lead to subjugation of certain rules within our philosophy of life. The other is the one that has for millennia been held by religious thinkers and belief systems ascribing a purpose to life through the divine presence of consciousness (spirit or soul) which has both the capacity for an eternal existence, a relationship to its creator either personally or by principles of living, and will in some sense return to that creator. These choices have enormous implications for morality, psychology as well as just about every facet of how we approach living. The question here is not which is correct but simply why only these options exist and what the implications of this are?
Though there is one way of avoiding this altogether. We can take the position that it does not really matter and the question of meaning is pointless. Not entirely different than the view that is common among atheist materialism. A view that we have all arrived on the scene of history haphazardly as a result evolutionary chance. In this view morality and purposeful living is really about the imposition of order on our world and at best meaning and a life of purpose is, in a sense, illusory, It is a view that is much more prominent that many are aware of. I have found in my discussions that many if not most people under thirty or so feel that this may very well be the reality we cannot avoid.
Some as of recent, have contextualized morality in as a collective expression of an evolutionary goal that we are all, because of our humanity are all vested in. In a sense such a position would declare that we should consider our responsibility to act according to the collective mandate. However, to view reality in this way is a choice which will inevitably lead to subjugation of certain rules within our philosophy of life. The other is the one that has for millennia been held by religious thinkers and belief systems ascribing a purpose to life through the divine presence of consciousness (spirit or soul) which has both the capacity for an eternal existence, a relationship to its creator either personally or by principles of living, and will in some sense return to that creator. These choices have enormous implications for morality, psychology as well as just about every facet of how we approach living. The question here is not which is correct but simply why only these options exist and what the implications of this are?
The modern peril of choice in the pursuit of meaning
economist.com
"But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. I might even be said to tyrannize....clinging tenaciously to all the choices available to us contributes to bad decisions, to anxiety, stress, and dissatisfaction-even to clinical depression."
Barry Schwartz The Paradox of Choice p-2-3
In his compelling book The Paradox of Choice (why less is more) Barry Schwartz notes the significance of choice in modern living. Going into a supermarket we are inundated by thousands of choices from hundreds of cereals to salad dressings. Off course there is also cyber-shopping in which the virtual choices are near limitless. We have stores with gadgets in which even video players come in dozens of variations, not to mention phones, TV’s and a plethora of stuff to supposedly make our lives simpler. We even use the internet to shop for knowledge. If we take the time we have a myriad of options concerning; utilities, health care insurance, retirement plans and medical care. Beyond consumption and personal planning is the fastest growing areas of human choice; to do cosmetic surgery or not, how we work (in some countries if we work at all), choosing love (speed dating, cohabitation, partners, friends with benefits). Barry Schwartz makes this observation about the modern complexity of romantic choices I am sure many of us are unaware of.
Barry Schwartz The Paradox of Choice p-2-3
In his compelling book The Paradox of Choice (why less is more) Barry Schwartz notes the significance of choice in modern living. Going into a supermarket we are inundated by thousands of choices from hundreds of cereals to salad dressings. Off course there is also cyber-shopping in which the virtual choices are near limitless. We have stores with gadgets in which even video players come in dozens of variations, not to mention phones, TV’s and a plethora of stuff to supposedly make our lives simpler. We even use the internet to shop for knowledge. If we take the time we have a myriad of options concerning; utilities, health care insurance, retirement plans and medical care. Beyond consumption and personal planning is the fastest growing areas of human choice; to do cosmetic surgery or not, how we work (in some countries if we work at all), choosing love (speed dating, cohabitation, partners, friends with benefits). Barry Schwartz makes this observation about the modern complexity of romantic choices I am sure many of us are unaware of.
Be careful how you make your choices because your choices will make you
wikipedia.org
"You gotta serve somebody"
Bob Dylan
“It is not the truth that people cannot handle. It is the consequences that stem from that truth.”
― J.K. Miller II, Reborn
"Everybody eventually surrenders to something or someone. If not God, you will surrender to the opinions or expectations of others, to money, to resentment, to fear, or to your own pride, lusts or ego."
Rick Warren The Purpose Driven Life
"Just sign here on the dotted line"
By surrendering "to the opinions or expectations of others, to money, to resentment, to fear, or to your own pride, lusts or ego is essentially the same as handing your life purpose over to fate. Perhaps, for no other reason than people may, and have a tendency to fail us. As for wealth, no one knows exactly how much money one will be satisfied with, resentment and fear both rob us of life and pride, lusts and our egos get old with us. I think most of us could agree that there is something very unattractive in the goal of being an egotistical proud old pervert!
Humorously, it has been said, "there is only one thing worse than a pessimistic youth - an optimistic old timer"
This is the dark side of the privilege of choice. There are no freebies in life. We will one day come to own our choices, the big ones that set our lives on an irreversible trajectory and the little cumulative ones that will eventually come to define our existence.
One way or the other we have no choice, our choices will come back to us sooner or later!
Humorously, it has been said, "there is only one thing worse than a pessimistic youth - an optimistic old timer"
This is the dark side of the privilege of choice. There are no freebies in life. We will one day come to own our choices, the big ones that set our lives on an irreversible trajectory and the little cumulative ones that will eventually come to define our existence.
One way or the other we have no choice, our choices will come back to us sooner or later!
How we choose more but end up with less
lessismoredesign.wordpress.com
“Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.”
― Goethe
“Don't bite off more than you can chew because nobody looks attractive spitting it back out.”
― Carroll Bryant
"All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away"
The rock band - Fuel
"Those in frequent contact with the things of the world should make good use of them without becoming attached to them, for this world and all it contains will pass away."
I Corinthians 7:31
Psychologist, teacher, writer and speaker Barry Schwartz has raised a notion that has made a very persuasive argument for the idea that our modern affluent western civilization is unmatched historically in the amount of choices we have and what appears to be an unprecedented display of cultural freedom. However, this state of personal independence is actually not giving us more freedom, but perhaps beginning to rob us of our quality of life. In his book The Paradox of Choice (why more is less) he states:
“As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.”
Too much choice can even cause paralysis!
― Goethe
“Don't bite off more than you can chew because nobody looks attractive spitting it back out.”
― Carroll Bryant
"All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away"
The rock band - Fuel
"Those in frequent contact with the things of the world should make good use of them without becoming attached to them, for this world and all it contains will pass away."
I Corinthians 7:31
Psychologist, teacher, writer and speaker Barry Schwartz has raised a notion that has made a very persuasive argument for the idea that our modern affluent western civilization is unmatched historically in the amount of choices we have and what appears to be an unprecedented display of cultural freedom. However, this state of personal independence is actually not giving us more freedom, but perhaps beginning to rob us of our quality of life. In his book The Paradox of Choice (why more is less) he states:
“As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.”
Too much choice can even cause paralysis!
Target points
personal-fitness-is-fun.com
- Choice is an essential component in what it implies to be human.
- There are certain restrictions in choice. We choose to pursue meaning or not, we choose to believe in the existence of God, embrace a religion or not, we choose to live for our own satisfaction or to serve others.
- We can't choose when we are born and when we die just what we do in between.
- Perhaps the greatest range of choices are within what we choose to do with our thought life.
- One way or the other we have no choice, our choices will come back to us sooner or later!
- One way or the other we will have to "surrender" or make some type of choice particularly when it comes to the question of meaning and purpose of life.
- More options and the availability of increased choices does necessarily equate to happiness or a deeper sense of living with purpose.