I find that this is one of the most difficult things in life. To see our choices and reflect upon their impact.
We make choices every day. Over and over. What we pay attention to. Who we call. Where we go. Who we associate with. What we read, eat, or ignore. What we get involved in. Where we spend our time. Who we spend our time with. And so on.
We defend our choices either by looking outside of ourselves or by never reflecting at all on their outcome. We defend by saying: That was a priority. This person made me feel good – that is why I spend time with them. It’s what I like to do. That was too hard for me to stay with it. That didn’t interest me. All of these answers help us be kind to our ego.
All very good reasons. But most times we never reflect at all on our choices. Remembering that at the core, everything we do is still our choice. Without scoring our choices over a range of very good to very poor, how will we ever grow, change and improve?
More importantly, we should ask, why did we make that choice?
To answer these types of questions we need to look at where our choice “took us”. In order to do this, we need to step back and see our choices. Where they started from, how they evolved, and where we are today because of them.
None of us will always choose right. This is how some of the misdirection in our lives occurs. Bad choices take us in different directions we never intended.
People who never see their choices tend to get stuck in a rut. They continue to live with the same struggles and frustrations, over and over, because they can never see where their choices led them. Why? Because they continue to choose in the same way.
People, whose lives evolve and grow have a more developed skill at seeing their choices and reflecting if they were good ones or not. They continually adapt, change, and pivot quickly when they first realize that their choices took them in an unintended, less desirable direction. Making different choices along the way. Ones that very well may not be as familiar or comfortable to them the first time.
The conflict within ourselves occurs the day we begin to see and reflect on our choices. And then refusing to choose differently. Personal change only occurs when our choices change. Becoming comfortable with new, strange, and possibly uncomfortable new paths discovered by us through the new choices we now begin to embrace.
Difficult but important for us to try.