“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
This morning I woke up thinking about choice. From the moment that I am conscious, it feels that almost every second I am confronted with it. From the moment I decide to get out of bed (or not) …. What prompts me to rise each morning really?
Last year, I happened to read “The Big Book”, looking to understand the addiction of an acquaintance. To an outsider, drinking may seem like a choice. Either you do, or you don’t. Even for myself, having a glass (or two or three) of wine after work, has been a lifelong “choice”. I’ve spent much of this week watching that choice, as I decided to take a break from that habit. Sure enough, at 4:00ish, there is a steady pull, and a struggle that my mind goes through. As long as I feed my mind something – and this week it’s been a club soda or a fruit flavored aqua fresco – mind forgets about the cocktail. It’s been a great practice in mindfulness, because I’m seeing clearly that 90 seconds is about the amount of time that it takes for that “thought bubble” as I like to call it (along with all the associated emotions) to arise and fall.
I suppose I was contemplating what lies beyond choice. And it’s more than willpower as well. In “The Big Book”, it’s called faith. Almost a spiritual awakening if you will. It seems that unless we are able to tap into a higher energy realm, we simply sometimes won’t make the best choices for ourselves. As my friend Bridgette likes to say, we must draw energy from somewhere. Be it other people, food, drugs, shopping … Or someplace ethereal. Meditation has been proven a powerful force against addiction, depression, etc.
This led me to research again, a drug called ayahuasca. There is a documentary out called “The Jungle Prescription”. It is the tale of two doctors treating their addicted patients with a mysterious Amazonian medicine rumored to reveal one’s deepest self. Dr. Gabor Maté has a revolutionary idea: to treat addicts with compassion. His work is being done in Portland, Oregon and in Canada. “Seeing people open to themselves, even temporarily, has been a teaching and an inspiration.” What is this deepest self, I wonder? I think I touched on it a bit yesterday, from all of your wonderful comments (thank you!).
The documentary can be found here:http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episode/jungle-prescription.html
For whatever reason, those were my steaming thoughts this morning. Put your own mindfulness to work today, and watch all of your choices arise and fall. It’s astounding how many we have.
And here’s what some of the most brilliant authors have to say about choice. What do you think? Are we in charge of our destiny via choice? And what lies beyond choice?? (I love the last quote ♥)
Quotes on Choice:
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“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
― Aristotle
“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
“There are no safe choices. Only other choices.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“Don’t be disheartened by the forces of evil. Nothing can happen that God hasn’t allowed. Even resistance is all part of grand orchestration. The devil always has you right were God wants you.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
“I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.”
― Oprah Winfrey
“There is a time in every life when paths are chosen, character is forged. I could have chosen a different path. But I didn’t. I failed myself.”
― Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
“The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
“When you make a choice, you change the future.”
― Deepak Chopra
“I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping
