Choices

Cause and effect. That's what choices are all about. Karma. What goes around comes around.

Someone wise I know used to say "Nothing is compulsory. It's just the consequences." In essence, it means we can always choose to do or not to do anything. But we'll have to bear the consequences. We can choose not to eat. But we'll be hungry later. So to prevent ourselves from crying out from hunger pains, we are forced to eat. In that sense we are left with no choice. Life is like that. Sometimes, you have a whole array of choices for you, like a buffet spread. Sometimes, the choices are limited. Other times, circumstances leave you with no choice and we've to make painful decisions.

When we are faced with too many options, we are lost. When we don't have any choice, we are lost. Life is full of choices. There's no totality (total good or total bad) to anything which complicates matters, especially when we already have to face the decision-making of choosing from either too many choices or no choice.

Vis Sa said in a recent talk I attended that when he went overseas to study, he wanted to buy some cheese. He walked into a supermarket and saw a whole shelf of cheese and because he was faced with so many choices, he stood there staring at the cheese, not being able to do anything. In the end, he didn't buy any cheese. Someone who's unaccustomed to many choices is faced with rigormortis when confronted with many choices. On the contrary, someone who doesn't have any choice will be dismayed and frustrated by his lack of options.

There's a phrase I've heard. It goes like this: You can choose to do this or that. By doing nothing, you are also choosing.

I don't know which is worse: To have no choice and get into an unhappy situation or to make a bad choice and be forced into situations you hate. It is so hard to CHOOSE which is worse. It is hard enough to choose in the first place.