There are instances in everyone's life where one has to stop and choose between things. Each option leads to a unique path and a different outcome. We bear responsibility for what we choose and have to live with it. However, there are times where we have a choice but we dont get to make it, something or someone else does it for us. We just accept what has been done for us and move on. What do we make out of the choice? How do we react to its eventual outcome? Was it destiny or just sheer lack of trying or as some psychologist would say, insufficient internal locus of control?
Lets take an example. I get a call and have to meet this friend at a certain place. I have several alternatives for making the journey. I can go by bus, auto, bike or a car. However due to a time constraint I prefer a personal mode of transport. So, that would be either the bike or the car. Each has its pros and cons. The car is quite comfortable and I get to hear music though it takes longer to travel and traffic, parking can be issues. The bike is quick and economical but highly stressful and less safe. I would think about the place I have to go to , time of travel , returning time and other factors before I make a decision. That is what one does when he or she has the choice. Later if the person gets stuck in a huge jam or get hit by someone or get injured or is involved some freak occurrence which shall cause loss or damage, it would be something he can accept and move on for it was his decision.
But what we have the choice but are unable to make it for ourselves. We are quite keen on it but dont have the final say. Taking the same example as before, I have decided that I need personal transport and have to choose between the bike and the car. If however the car keys were missing and a few minutes of search dont yield them, the option of the car, though available, isnt really there. So though I may have chosen the car because I dint want to deal with the stress of swerving in and out in a bike, it doesnt matter. I shall have to settle for the bike or else abandon the trip(or the choice of using personal transport atleast).
There is a term for this: Hobson's Choice. Wikipedia describes it as follows: A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered, and one may refuse to take that option. The choice is therefore between taking the option or not taking it, colloquially formulated as "take it or leave it." Here the only one option is the bike.
Now I contemplate about the choice I had to make, not as a result of selection but out of compulsion. There is a consequence for every action, an effect for every cause. We make decisions and pick from options to control those consequences and effects. For only when we get to control what is happening to and around us do we tend to have a better grasp of what is to become of us. However if this control is only an illusion and the choice is that of Hobson's and I was destined to take the bike and fate hid the car keys; what do I do? How do I understand and accept that I am just a pawn in the game or ever worse just a random event in the universal chaos? So here are the two answers for this riddle: chance and destiny.
Either it was a matter of chance, an agent of randomness and chaos, that bike was to be my companion and not the car. In the infinite scenarios occurring in the universe, countless dice roll and corresponding actions happen and the selection of bike was one. Or I am just a piece in the great jigsaw puzzle some greater power is playing and I can do nothing but try fit in the place He wants me to go and do the things I am supposed to do, all with an illusion that I am doing it out of my own accord. He has ordained (or written it down as some say) beforehand that though I shall want to use the car, I shall not find my keys and settle for the bike.
But for me there is a third answer! Me.
I recently took a Locus of Control test and it turns out that I have a high internal locus of control. That is, I believe that I am responsible for the good and bad results in my life and that my destiny is in my control rather than in the hand of others, fate or god. I think it is true, I do hold myself responsible (and a little too much too ) for what happens to me. So I am the cause for all the effects and stimuli for the actions and their consequences. So maybe the keys were right there and I dint find them. It is a matter of probability of finding the car keys or doing anything else, if you choose to. By the Infinite Monkey theorem if i try enough number of time I would get any desired result. So if I had looked at more places, more carefully for the keys, I would have found them and made the trip in the car.
However, I have to admit inspite of all vehemence that not everything is in my control. Actions have consequences which depend on other people's actions. Effects are based upon multiple causes, of nature, other people and even of chance. It is like after enough time spent, I find the car keys but still have to choose bike to make the trip because the oil is leaking or someone has blocked my car and is not to be found. This is something I have to live with and accept, for inspite of all control I would like to wrest over my life, somethings tend to have an undeterminable course.
Lets take an example. I get a call and have to meet this friend at a certain place. I have several alternatives for making the journey. I can go by bus, auto, bike or a car. However due to a time constraint I prefer a personal mode of transport. So, that would be either the bike or the car. Each has its pros and cons. The car is quite comfortable and I get to hear music though it takes longer to travel and traffic, parking can be issues. The bike is quick and economical but highly stressful and less safe. I would think about the place I have to go to , time of travel , returning time and other factors before I make a decision. That is what one does when he or she has the choice. Later if the person gets stuck in a huge jam or get hit by someone or get injured or is involved some freak occurrence which shall cause loss or damage, it would be something he can accept and move on for it was his decision.
But what we have the choice but are unable to make it for ourselves. We are quite keen on it but dont have the final say. Taking the same example as before, I have decided that I need personal transport and have to choose between the bike and the car. If however the car keys were missing and a few minutes of search dont yield them, the option of the car, though available, isnt really there. So though I may have chosen the car because I dint want to deal with the stress of swerving in and out in a bike, it doesnt matter. I shall have to settle for the bike or else abandon the trip(or the choice of using personal transport atleast).
There is a term for this: Hobson's Choice. Wikipedia describes it as follows: A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered, and one may refuse to take that option. The choice is therefore between taking the option or not taking it, colloquially formulated as "take it or leave it." Here the only one option is the bike.
Now I contemplate about the choice I had to make, not as a result of selection but out of compulsion. There is a consequence for every action, an effect for every cause. We make decisions and pick from options to control those consequences and effects. For only when we get to control what is happening to and around us do we tend to have a better grasp of what is to become of us. However if this control is only an illusion and the choice is that of Hobson's and I was destined to take the bike and fate hid the car keys; what do I do? How do I understand and accept that I am just a pawn in the game or ever worse just a random event in the universal chaos? So here are the two answers for this riddle: chance and destiny.
Either it was a matter of chance, an agent of randomness and chaos, that bike was to be my companion and not the car. In the infinite scenarios occurring in the universe, countless dice roll and corresponding actions happen and the selection of bike was one. Or I am just a piece in the great jigsaw puzzle some greater power is playing and I can do nothing but try fit in the place He wants me to go and do the things I am supposed to do, all with an illusion that I am doing it out of my own accord. He has ordained (or written it down as some say) beforehand that though I shall want to use the car, I shall not find my keys and settle for the bike.
But for me there is a third answer! Me.
I recently took a Locus of Control test and it turns out that I have a high internal locus of control. That is, I believe that I am responsible for the good and bad results in my life and that my destiny is in my control rather than in the hand of others, fate or god. I think it is true, I do hold myself responsible (and a little too much too ) for what happens to me. So I am the cause for all the effects and stimuli for the actions and their consequences. So maybe the keys were right there and I dint find them. It is a matter of probability of finding the car keys or doing anything else, if you choose to. By the Infinite Monkey theorem if i try enough number of time I would get any desired result. So if I had looked at more places, more carefully for the keys, I would have found them and made the trip in the car.
However, I have to admit inspite of all vehemence that not everything is in my control. Actions have consequences which depend on other people's actions. Effects are based upon multiple causes, of nature, other people and even of chance. It is like after enough time spent, I find the car keys but still have to choose bike to make the trip because the oil is leaking or someone has blocked my car and is not to be found. This is something I have to live with and accept, for inspite of all control I would like to wrest over my life, somethings tend to have an undeterminable course.
5 comments:
hey nice one and informative too!
birth is beyond choice, why should the rest be any different? lol
nice piece. I might want to watch matrix again coz though it be an illusion, choices still remain to be made to survive an eventual course of destiny.
PS: you might want to edit those grammatical glitches.
Take your last paragraph. What you write is true. Not always are consequences dependent on your actions alone. However, if one were to look at things only from that perspective, you could say that how the other person reacts also depends, to some extent, on you. Anyway, I'm digressing.
The point I wanted to make was that I think that to quite an extent, what happens to us depends on us. However, as you said, there are so many factors that weigh in on what finally happens, and I like to think that there's at least One someone or something that keeps track of it all...hence, the idea of God. :P
@meera thank you
@chaitanya Take the blue pill. make ur choice! whatever tht choice may be.
@gurdit Aah. God ! But I dont believe in one.
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