One of the tools of Choose You™ is the idea that life is full of Opportunity to practice, explore, try new stuff and make the choices that you want to make.
When you are aware of something it is possible to see examples of it all around you. I have certainly found this to be true with the Choose You™ project. A few weeks ago I was watching The Musketeers on the BBC, “A thrilling world of action, adventure and romance inspired by Dumas’ legendary characters” (that quote is from the BBC website, as is the picture above). I have to say I enjoy the programme for its romp through 17th century France, and every now and then, as with all things, it contains something that has a resonance that I didn’t expect.
The episode called “Through a Glass Darkly” was all about King Louise XIV and his entourage visiting Marmion, a star gazer who had a dark glass through which the King would be able to see a solar eclipse (topical in the UK of course today). Actually though, Marmion holds the King responsible for the death of his family and has set the whole thing up as a trap so that he can punish him. He forces the King to choose one of two rooms. Whoever is in that room will be killed. One room has the King’s family in it but he doesn’t know which one. Marmion denies that he himself will be responsible for anyone’s murder by saying
That’s the beauty of it: a choice made blind hoping for the best….it’s not me who would injure them. Fate will decide
There are two things in particular that struck me about these words.
For the first I can offer a trivial example (certainly not life and death like the King’s situation) from earlier this week when I found myself stuck on a train and offered the Opportunity to experience one of Marmion’s ‘blind choices’. The points on the line that my train was on had just jammed. No one knew when they would be fixed. The trains on the other line were running but stopped at every station. I’m late for an appointment. Do I stay where I am because if this train gets going it will get there quickly, or do I swap to the slow line. The driver’s words:
I can’t tell you what’s going to happen or which of those options is the best
My reaction to this Opportunity to choose blind was to hop from foot to foot and desperately seek information (talking to other passengers, watching what others were doing, trying to judge how long it wold take me to run to the other platform if a slow train came, trying to find out something from the train ap on my phone). I was not happy choosing blind!
Unlike Marmion I have learnt that I will do all that I can to avoid blind choices, by getting some information, any information, to help inform my choice.
The second thing that struck me is that, building on my blog of the 20th February, these words soundly contradict those of Will Schutz
I choose my whole life, and I always have. I choose my behaviour, my feelings, my thoughts, my illnesses, my body, my reactions, my spontaneity! (Schutz: The Truth Option p18)
So Schutz says fate has nothing to do with it, everything is our choice, and Marmion disagrees, introducing fate as the decision maker. As I have shared before, I mix the two
Even if you don’t choose everything that happens to you, you choose how you react to it
Whichever room the King selects it is Marmion who has the choice about whether to kill those within that room. That’s nothing to do with fate.
As with all things, where you sit with this will be individual to you, and will be shaped by your beliefs about yourself and the world. Whether our choices are about things large or small, to that extent none of us make ‘blind’ choices, as our beliefs inform us. Even Marmion is making a choice, a choice to believe in and hold fate responsible. For me I believe that I may not always have a choice about what happens to me, but I do always have a choice about how I deal with it. My choice with the train? I stayed on the fast one: at least I had a seat that way!!
As the King says in response to Marmion
Life is about choice…It can’t be avoided. Some choices are unpleasant and they have to be made. But there are always consequences”
Taking the Opportunity to explore helps us to understand how we make our choices, and by understanding we get control.
What do you need to help you choose and how do you go about getting it? Are you OK ‘choosing blind’, and if not, how do you cope when you have to? What is it that you believe that informs the choices that you make? How are those beliefs helpful, and where they are not helpful, what might you choose to do about it?
I would love to have your thoughts on the Choose You™ project and your examples of Choose You™ moments, so if you would like to share please email me at jenny@insight-out.co.uk
Thank you for reading this blog. And many thanks to all those who have signed up already to receive it directly in to their inbox once a fortnight. I am really keen to spread the message that the Choose You™ project represents, so if you would like to, but haven’t done so yet, then please do sign up.