Choices
(decisions?) are subject to outer influences. No choice is really, truly, ours,
no matter how honest our attempt to be with ourselves is. So does freedom of
choice truly exists? Can we really be “true” to ourselves, and with others? Our
choice is limited by the options presented to us, as in the House of Danger, where sometimes I was
not pleased with the offered options, either because they were bland or they
did not fit my idea of what should have been suggested, but I did not have a choice, I had to follow the author’s
idea of what will make a good story (though I could have “disobeyed” the
instructions of the book, and read in random order, but it probably would not
have improved my reading experience). I might be stating the obvious here, but
we are able to choose only from what we know (or think we know), meaning that we
might not choose the best option for us, but rather the best out of poor
options. Our capacity to be true to ourselves is limited by our knowledge, both
of the “world” and of ourselves. But, that doesn’t mean that there is only one
way to be true to ourselves. The phrase “it’s all for the best” is said
practically whenever someone is not pleased, in an
attempt to shine light on a situation, to say that something positive might
grow of what seems bad at the time. Is that considered believing in faith? Not
necessarily. I think it means that if we accept the circumstances, and learn to
adjust, we will eventually accept it as a “truth” rather than a digression in
our path to… happiness? Satisfaction?
*Thank
you Burke for reviewing my post!
Another quote that came to mind was "everything happens for a reason" which has a similar idea to "it's all for the best." I think in this way people manipulate themselves into coping with events that have a negative impact on their lives. We realize that we cannot choose the events that happen in our lives, but by telling ourselves "it's for the best" we get to choose the way we feel about it. However, we still rely on a lot of other factors to help us with how we feel like support from friends, loved ones, and family. We don't necessarily have the freedom to cope on our own or make a choice how to deal with situations because other individuals immediately comfort us, make us food, visit us, even if that's not what we want. We accept the generosity from our friends because like you said, we learn to adjust and it helps us to happiness.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a really interesting point about our choices and the nature of free will. I remember in psych earlier this year we learned about a study where people had to press either a button on the right side or left side of the screen and their brain activity was recorded. What was shocking about the results is that the brain had already "decided" which way they were going to go before participants even knew what the question was. So do we not have any free will? It seems like a scary thought. But there are so many outside factors and influences on us, whether unconscious or not, and the more I think about it, the less free will I think I have.
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