We face choices every moment of every day. What to say next in a conversation, what to eat for lunch, how to react to an extra long grocery line, whether to smile or frown after a long day of work. Some choices are more automatic than others, but they are choices nonetheless. Some of us do little thinking before lacing up for a run at 6 in the morning, while others have a fitful internal argument with themselves before hitting the snooze button and rolling over. At lunch, a salad may be an automatic choice for one, while another may be trying to decide between a number 2 or number 6 value meal.
What makes these choices automatic? Are they habits, or just who we are? Are they a product of a certain phase of life? Are they situational? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. How we make our everyday choices is determined by multiple levels and scales. We consider both the here and now and the absent and later. For example, if you forget to pack your healthy lunch for work/school, how likely is it that you will replace that lunch that you don't have with a less-healthy option? I won't name names, but I'm guessing that it's easier to find a burger of some type than a salad worth eating. Then the question is, are you buying a burger because it is easier and more available, or because it's what you actually wanted and the forgotten lunch presented an opportunity to do so? It's hard to say. Life is so dynamic that it is difficult to blame a vice on a singular cause. Reasons are always multifaceted; originating from experiences past and projecting to future consequences. I used the food example because it is easy to pick on lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise. But what about the other choices we make throughout the day?
How we react to a situation is a choice too. We can't always change our perspective about a given situation, but we can change how we respond to it. This idea is presented in this graduation speech by David Foster Wallace:
We all have a "default setting". This setting has been dialed up based on our past, current, and future mindset. These are the aforementioned "automatic choices", those decisions in life that we just don't think about. Before we know it, we are feeling or acting in a certain way. What's important to realize, however, is that we can change that setting. We can choose at any point to simply act differently. Sure, paths are easy to follow, but what if, just this once, we decided to blaze a new trail? If we like this new and better trail, we can keep taking it--until it looks clear and the old one appears overgrown. Fear and the discomfort of new patterns make this trail hard to find. Or, perhaps we see the trail and perceive it too be too dangerous to traverse. Fear can be hard to conquer, but the caveat to fear is that it only takes one step, or one choice.
Seeing life as a series of choices helps to change your perspective of who you are and how you interact with the people around you. Ironically, you can also choose to be okay with your bad choices. I only call a bad choice a mistake if I don't learn from it.
I'm not talking about being optimistic, perpetually rosy, or wildly altruistic. I'm talking about putting the best version of yourself forward through making the choices that allow yourself to do so.
