No. 12

Welcome Reader

The Easy Way or the Right Way?

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THIS SNIPPET IN SHORT:

We're faced with choices every day, but the most meaningful ones are often more difficult to make but require that we make them, and make them with the future in mind, and not just the short-term present.

"It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny."

[Jean Nidetch, Founder of Weight Watchers International]


"Dark and difficult times lie ahead, Harry. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right... and what is easy."

[Albus Dumbledore / J.K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"]


"We need to teach the next generation of children from Day One that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear."

[Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Swiss-American author & psychiatrist]

[796 Words, estimated reading time 4-7 mins]

As I'm writing this it's a cold, frosty and foggy morning outside and I have planned to go running later. I could choose the easy option and tell myself that it's too cold, it's warmer indoors and I can always go another day. Or I could tell myself that after a few minutes out there I'll warm up and, since I want to be fitter and lighter than I currently am, missing another session will mean it'll take all the longer to get where I want to go.

From the moment we wake up to the moment we drift off again into the world of sleep life presents us with choices. Some are almost incidental, like which pair of socks to wear today, whilst some carry more meaning, such as "Do I go running today?" or even "Do I tell my manager's manager that my current manager is a bully?"

Personally, I think we've developed a worrying trend over the last decade or so (perhaps it's been longer than that - I don't have the benefit of those extra years experience yet). It's a trend towards ease over excellence, towards short-term quick-fixes over longer-term benefits.

I see it with parents who give in to their kid's tantrums in the supermarket, trading a quick quietening (more to do with stopping the parent feeling embarrassed) over the longer-term aim of the child learning some self-control. I've seen it with youngsters choosing to smoke to 'fit in with my mates', despite knowing the long-term effects. I've seen it with people in abusive relationships staying quiet in them because it's less difficult than confronting their partner or leaving.

And I'm sure you, as you're reading this and thinking for yourself, can think of examples where people have decided in favour of something easy in the short-term but which can have quite negative long-term consequences.

There are even times when we can even chose to allow someone else to make that choice for us (or deceive ourselves into thinking that's what happened) but even that in itself is a choice.

Since I love all things sciencey, I'd like to throw in Newton's First Law of Motion here:

"A body will continue in a state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by some external force to change that state."

Whilst this was intended to describe the physics of motion, it works in a metaphysical sense as well - let's re-write it as:

"Things will stay as they are until you DO something to change them."

 

I do understand that some choices are not easy to make - in some circumstances each option we find ourselves presented with carries some negatives with the positives. Even in choosing not to choose, we need to bear in mind that naively hoping somehow something will change despite us not choosing to make a change is one of the emptiest and vainest things we can do.

For example, choosing to stand up to the workplace bully might make things difficult for a while, but statistics show that those who do stick with a real case are heard and things do change. Or choosing to forgo just two average-sized biscuits a day results in us eating around 1 stone (14lbs) less in calories a year!

So, here's the challenge:

  • For the next half-an-hour, allow yourself to become aware of each choice you're making.
    For example, it could be about what drink to get at the coffee machine, which skirt or trousers to wear today, whether to visit the gym on the way home or not, what to watch on TV after you've read this - no matter how trivial or important, become aware of those choices.

  • For each choice, consider how that choice might affect you a day from now, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, especially if it's a repeated choice.

  • In the light of what you've discovered about those choices in the longer-term, you can begin to realise two things:

    1. That some of the choices that you think are really serious might actually be fairly trivial.

    2. That some of the choices you thought were easy to make or trivial might actually have some serious knock-on effects, especially if repeatedly made.

  • Now that you've thought about these things, pay more attention where it needs to be paid, and allow yourself some more freedom in those choices which matter less.

 

From the moment we wake up to the moment we drift off again into the world of sleep life presents us with choices. You've already chosen to read this snippet this far (thank-you). I'm choosing to go running later. What will you choose to do today, or choose not to do, to make life more like you'd like it to be?

Soon,

 

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