The True Power of Choice

Over the past few days, my thoughts have kept returning to one word.

Desire.

A simple, almost innocent word. And yet, the more I think about it, the more I realise that “desire” alone isn’t quite enough. You can desire many things without moving an inch towards them. You can dream about them, imagine them, even convince yourself that you truly want them.

Desire takes on a different kind of power when it becomes intention. When it meets your will. Intention is desire that has chosen a direction.

And that made me wonder: what makes intention possible?

Choice.

And what makes choice possible?

The existence of more than one possibility: contrast.

I find it fascinating to think that the very things you often struggle with in life: difference, alternatives, what you don’t want, what doesn’t feel right for you ... may also be what helps you understand more clearly who you are and where you want to go.

You couldn’t say “yes, this” if there were no “no, not this”.

Perhaps, then, contrast isn’t simply something to overcome. It can also become a gift. Not because you have to like everything that happens to you, or force every difficult experience into some kind of positive lesson. But because even what you don’t choose can help you recognise more clearly what you do want to choose.

To be human is to experience an extraordinary variety of possibilities: different people, different values, cultures, talents, desires, priorities, sensitivities, different ways of loving, working, creating and interpreting the world.

And it is precisely this diversity that continually creates possibility.

Whenever you encounter something that attracts or repels you, something within you responds. If you learn to listen to that response rather than simply follow it automatically, contrast becomes information and desire can become intention.

But this is where, for me, the more difficult part begins: learning to choose without needing someone else’s choice to be wrong.

How different might your experience be if you could simply say: "this is what I choose" without needing to add: … " and therefore, if you choose differently, you must be wrong".

We have created categories, hierarchies and factions. We have turned so many preferences into absolute truths and learnt to reinforce our own choices by setting them against the choices of others. And yet difference doesn’t necessarily threaten our identity. It can simply be an alternative we choose not to take.

This doesn’t mean abandoning discernment. You can recognise when something isn’t aligned with your values. You can say no. You can set boundaries or walk away. You can take responsibility for your decisions.

But there is an important difference between discerning what is right for you and condemning what is different from you.

There is enormous freedom in that distinction: when you stop spending so much energy trying to control, correct or judge other people’s choices, that same energy becomes available for far more interesting questions: "What do I choose?"

And, perhaps even more importantly: "Why am I choosing it?"

Because not everything you desire necessarily comes from the deepest part of who you are. There is an ancient part of your brain that draws you towards what feels rewarding and urges you away from what feels threatening or painful. These are precious mechanisms that have helped us survive.

But surviving and expanding are not the same thing.

Sometimes the very thing that helps you grow is the thing that initially makes you uncomfortable. Such as speaking a truth or leaving behind something familiar.

If your only compass were "pleasure yes, pain no", you would very often choose what is familiar, immediately gratifying or seemingly safe. But there is another compass within you: the compass of your values.

The one that tells you when something has meaning. When something feels deeply yours. When it brings you closer to the person you sense yourself to be.

And this, for me, is where desire truly becomes intention. No longer simply: "I want this because it will make me feel good". But: "I choose this because something within me recognises this direction".

Perhaps this is the part of desire that feels like the passion of the soul.

That quiet force which, faced with the countless alternatives life places before you, suddenly makes something within you say: "There. That’s where I want to go and I don’t need everyone else to come with me".

You don’t need them to choose the same path. Perhaps you don’t even need them to understand yours. Because, when you think about it, there is something wonderfully paradoxical about all of this: other people’s differences do not limit your freedom to choose. They are precisely what make choice possible.

So perhaps you could try a little experiment: the next time someone makes a choice very different from your own, before judging it, you could stop for a moment..."That isn’t my choice. So what is it?"

And listen. Perhaps life isn’t constantly asking you to decide who is right. Perhaps, again and again, it is offering you something far more precious: the opportunity to discover who you want to be.

And perhaps the true power of choice lies precisely here: having the courage to become that person.

(Pic credits Sophia Kunkel for Unsplash)