Choices

Being able to choose is one of the main features that define us as human beings (are animals able to choose? This is a post yet to be written, lol).

This is an ability that we develop as time goes by. As we grow up and turn into adults, we are asked to choose more often, until the moment when our life depends only on the options we take. However, don’t take it wrong, choices are not about what we will get. Quite the opposite, they all are about what we loose.

In fact, whenever you take a decision – whenever you choose to do or not to do something – you are making an option to set aside one or more things. Be it a job, a person, a material asset, whatever. That is why each and every choice implies consequences and some feelings of loss. That is why so many people avoid choosing and prefer having someone else making such an effort on their turn – that way, the only thing they have to do is follow “their destiny” and rant about the poor lives they have.

Very often, making a choice is the hardest thing to do. Sometimes, we do have to wait for the appropriate timing. Others, we have to wait until we are totally sure we’re taking the “right” decision. Most of the time, choices are irreversible – yes, of course you can change your mind later, but you know what ? In the meanwhile, the world moved on, and if you try to get back to a previous situation you will soon find out things aren’t exactly the same.

This said, being able to choose is a privilege. Several people in this planet live all their lifes not being granted such a right, and therefore not knowing exactly how it is to being the sole responsible for one’s life. Because I left my parent’s house at seventeen, I really can’t imagine how it may be to go through life like that.

But I do know one thing: for as much as choices may hurt us and make us loose something that is dear to us… the only choices I regret in my life were those I wasn’t brave enough to make.