The Freedom of Life Without Choice

We all have choice in our lives, some more than others yet I have come to realise that it is choice that is actually not more freeing yet rather more restrictive. Without choice we have much greater freedom!

There are other benefits that come with less choice and to think about it this actually leads us on a path to freedom. Everyday we wake in the morning and are faced with so many choices, what to wear, what to eat, to exercise or not to exercise, whether to go to work or not. Choices can make us less effective.

Think about the choices you have daily that require no thought because the choice is a daily part of your life, a ritual or habit. Brushing you teeth before you go to bed is something many adults do without hesitation, we don’t allow the thought of the option not to brush but it is available.

To go to work for the day is simply another choice yet again for many of us it may not seem like an option. I must go to work to earn money; without a job how will I get money. So we simply obey that choice and the decision to go to work seems almost without choice. We can choose to go to the beach, we can choose to go without money, we can choose to find another income source, and we actually do have choice.

When we eliminate choice we eliminate the time it takes to make decision. If you have a choice of what to eat for breakfast you spend time in this decision state, even if it is only minutes you still spend time. If you choose to eat the same thing every morning for breakfast, toast with peanut butter and a cup of tea, you have just saved yourself time and in doing so freeing up more of your life.

When making that decision of what to eat for breakfast you have to weigh up the options and while the decision may not be critical, certainly not life and death kind of stuff, we still suffer internally with the fact we may make the wrong choice. We want to eat something that will satisfy us and make us feel emotionally pleased. For each of us the ultimate decision will lay on how it makes us feel and that may be to be nourished, full, tasty, energised, etc.

Try eating the same thing everyday for breakfast without choice; perhaps try it for diner meals instead.

What about those larger choices we have, the ones that require more time to decide and perhaps were outcomes may be more critical. The choice to exercise daily for many of us is an ongoing battle. We are often tossed between guilt, pain and pleasure.

If you choose not to exercise we avoid pain and the immediate pleasure of lying in bed for another 30 minutes is very tempting. The guilt we suffer by not doing it places struggles in our mind. Not to mention the unseen consequences and longer term pain that comes with an unhealthy body. An unhealthy body will certainly bring with it greater pain in years to come and by then choices will be more of a challenge.

For many of us we think exercise is so critical that the choice is more important here than it is for what we fuel ourselves with. Diet and what to eat is overlooked and is less of a concern for us than exercise. This is not because we know without needing to choose what is a healthy diet but rather the opposite, because we lack knowledge and information. Perhaps we are ignorant to it or even manipulated or influenced one way or another by major food companies. This choice and the choice of diet however are and will become only more relevant as the years pass.

Have you ever been to a third world country? If you go to some of the remote villages and actually even in the cities for that matter people seem more free and happier. Even though the environments they live and their standard of living to us in the first worlds seem terrible and very unattractive. But why is it then that they are so content?

There may be a number of reasons for this including culture and social conditioning yet if we look deeper we may just find it is simple because they lack choice. Without so much to choose between, without so much thought over the decisions and without the waste of time they are less restricted and freer.

We in the western societies are overwhelmed with choice in life. We are spoilt with choice. We have an over supply of choice everyday. This is great in essence as it brings with it our ability to live with much greater standards and live with greater comforts and pleasures. However we are spoilt and it are these spoils that consume us in so many ways that are debilitating for us that we don’t care to see or simply cannot see.

I grew up with one TV and then there were two, by my teen years we all had TV’s in each of our rooms. This helped with our inability to decide on what to watch as a family unit, the solution was simple, buy more TV’s so than we could each watch what we desired. Then we had a choice of channels to watch, in my teens I think there were 5 but nowadays, without being sure, there must be upwards of 20 or 30 public channels to choose from, add cable and suddenly you have hundreds.

TV alone is perhaps the most restricting device we have in society, perhaps second to drugs and alcohol and even more recently the Internet, yet the choice of channels is even more restricting. The time people flick between channels hoping that they will strike gold, a show that will provide them with some level of superficial happiness, is so time consuming that it is wasteful. TV is not freeing.

This brings me back to the streets of Asia. People sit in groups, eating food, laughing, perhaps without TV but rather the company of others. They don’t have choice of what to eat for dinner but rather eat what is served to them by their family or local eatery. They seem to move in life at their own pace, work when they must, take a break when they need, and rest when they desire. They seem freer. I also understand they may lack many of the freedoms that we may take for granted but none the less they still seem happy.

With choice we have more options in life, granted and perhaps this is something we should be grateful yet have you thought about the restrictions associated with choice.

Choice is time consuming. It can also lead to pain, disappointment, depression and anxiety. With so much choice we become so use to this standard and suddenly when we are without it can cause these greater conflicts in life.

Try and remove some of the choices you have to make daily. When you are faced with choice think critically about the reality of the decision or outcome and if it is really not such an important choice perhaps move on immediately.

I have a choice right now to continue righting or stop. I believe I have sad what needed to be said and so in that will stop. Happy days!

Please leave me your thoughts below. Peace, passion and purpose, Leigh.