Its a matter of Choice
I came across today’s daily prompt on The Daily Post:
Daily Prompt: Captive’s Choice
by michelle w. on January 19, 2014
You’ve been kidnapped and given a choice: would you rather be stranded on an island, dropped into an unknown forest, or locked in a strange building?
Photographers, artists, poets: show us CHOICE.
Decided to respond to this prompt as it sparked some thoughts in me. Stranded on an island, dropped into an unknown forest, or locked up in a strange room.. honestly, I don’t know! None sound good to me, because in the first place being kidnapped wouldn’t be something I look forward to nor is it something we could choose. But if I could anything at all in this situation, I would choose to be the kidnapper instead.
And this happens to all of us everyday. Everyday, we are met with thousands of choices to make. From deciding whether to press the snooze button when the alarm clock rings first thing in the morning, to choice of beverage for breakfast, clothes to wear… choices choices choices.. However, how many of us actually pause enough to think about what could our choices made there and then actually lead to? I pressed the snooze button, and end up waking up 15 mins later than late. Missed the bus, and so decided to hail a cab. Accident happened on the road and the expressway was severely jammed. I end up being late for work and late for a client’s meeting. Lost the deal and there goes my promotion target. I lost my fighting spirit, not forgetting I haven’t had my morning coffee, made bad choices for lunch and had food junkier than junk, resulting in a bad indigestion and… One choice which no one can say for sure if it was a good choice or bad (sometimes snooze is absolutely necessary, I agree!) could lead to something entirely unexpected.
So is our choice of words, choice of lunch partners, working partners, life parters. Choice of who to date and where to go for dates.. They say you only know when you try, so just go for it. I followed this wise saying, and got married to a man whom over a period of 10 years made me feel he is someone whom I have known to be most dependable (versus my ex-es), most promising, and someone whom I can be sure will never let me down. I thought I made my choice very carefully, and it was an informed choice, but still it turned out to be a disaster. I have opted out of the marriage and going through divorce at the moment because he has chosen to cheat on me barely 1 year into our marriage, chose to show the other woman more respect over me,
more tender loving care over me, chose to tell her white lies about how nice her blue nail polish was when my strawberry-milk-pink ones were reportedly too loud and gaudy. He chose not to admit his mistake and claim he still loves me the most and if he were to choose all over again, he will still marry me and not anyone else. This other woman doesn’t come close. What he doesn’t know or refuse to know, is that when he made that choice to give her priority booking for Christmas Eve dinner, he has already made his choice clear, and made it long time ago.
Am I really upset over this whole thing? I could be if I choose to, and it is a choice I can make. Now that I think about it again, being stranded on an island, dropped into an unknown forest or locked in a strange building, I might just choose the forest, because at least I can choose to run and believe I can eventually be free.
I still agree with the statement “you don’t try, you don’t know”, and am an advocate of exploring and trying out new things despite possible failures, but my message to everyone would be to follow your heart more often than your mind. There are too many things in this world that just isn’t built for logic. Trust your instincts, and listen to what your heart says especially when your mind reports back a 100% pass on quality check 😉