Not Having to Choose
Deciding not to choose to perform an action is an action. When we make the decision not to choose, it is an action. Other times an action is taken or a decision is made before we are aware that something is to be done. That can reap us wonderful benefits.
Not having to choose can be as simple as someone giving us a glass of water before we’re aware we’re thirsty. We’ve run, taken a long walk or simply gone too long without hydrating our apparently thirsting body. We drink the water our bodies crave. Another person took the incentive to take care of our needs.
When we were in school or college and a pop quiz was suddenly thrown our way, we did not have to set time aside to study. It was now or never. Teachers know that pop quizzes are some of the toughest to give. It’s easier to have class discussions, research papers and formal exams. Watching students unexpectedly get brain freeze and forget material they otherwise knew is a real lesson for teachers. It’s gratifying when students otherwise considered mediocre or stupid turn in good papers. It’s a lesson the teacher did not choose, just as the students did not choose the quiz.
It’s a lesson that people pay closer attention, absorb and think about information more intently than society assumes. I have seen students whom teachers and administrators had consigned to a life of being failure turn in above average work. New teachers came along who refused to buy into the party line. The students had no choice when challenged by someone who refused to believe they were less than best.
It became the student’s choice — precisely as it becomes an adult’s choice when they enter professional life — whether or not to believe their challenger. We can choose not to rise to a new challenge. We can decide to investigate the challenge. We can accept the challenge to rise beyond others’ expectations.
We can float along as we have in life or rise to be new and better humans. Either way, it’s a choice.
Some of the most exciting reading that comes across my desk these days is from my alma mater. I was born and spent my childhood in the rural Upper Midwest. My adult life has been primarily spent in large metropolitan areas. Yet, I am always excited by the innovations in farming, rural life and how farmers and ranchers are working more closely with university agriculture schools than earlier generations. During childhood summers and holidays my mother sent me off to the dairy factory my father managed until he was pulled up the ranks. I worked in that factory during college days. The factory was closed forty years ago. The building stands. Like the old schoolhouse, mill and other buildings in the hamlet, it now houses shops and cafes.
Other people made decisions that I would not have made. I would never have thought to close the businesses. Out of closing a school, factories and small businesses has come a renaissance for a crossroads village that was down on its heel. New creative businesses moved into the town.
Good decisions were made that never required my input.
We have sufficient matters in our lives which need our attention. We do have to choose whether or not we want to honestly participate in life. As we mature in our twenties and thirties just showing up for work is not enough. Being surrounded by others is not enough. It’s up to us to decide whether or not to be truly alive.
Are we participating in life at home? Work? With friends and family?
Do we feel ourselves moving forward or are we stagnating? Are we becoming like that hamlet used to be where I spent so much of my childhood and early adult life? Are our souls down at heel?
For some of us the choices are a larger leap than for others. My work now is spiritual work. It was decided long before I entered school or the work force. How many senior citizens talk about seeing angels their whole lives?
This was not a choice.
It is a gift.
