Conversations For Transformation:
Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
Conversations For Transformation
Essays By Laurence Platt
Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard
And More
Moment Of Choice
Warren, New Jersey, USA
September 6, 2008
There's a particular moment I've experienced from time to time, a
moment I'm familiar with, a moment in which it's pertinently obvious
how my choices powerfully alter the quality of my life, a moment in
which it's patently evident that in the matter of my own experience, in
the matter of my own well being, I can choose its quality - at
all times under all circumstances.
I'm healthy. I take care of myself. I watch my diet. I exercise. Yet
every once in a while, maybe twice every five years, I'll catch a cold.
The moment I'm talking about is that moment ie the very moment just
before the cold sets in. I'm feeling fine. In good shape.
Then out of the blue I'll notice it. A dry tickle in my
throat. The thickening in my forehead. The first sign I'm catching a
cold.
If I'm conscious, if I'm clear, if I stay awake to the
experience, I see in that exact moment, in that
nick of time there's an opportunity to make a choice which
will alter the otherwise inevitable outcome ie which will
alter my future. The choice is this: I can choose the cold ie I can
choose to let it in OR ... I can choose not to. If I
choose not to, it'll pass by, like a freight train rumbling down the
tracks but not stopping in my station. If I ignore the opportunity,
avoid it, or if I simply take too long to capitalize on this moment
of choice then it's too late. Then it's got me -
replete with stuffy sniffly nose, Kleenex, and hot chicken soup
for a week or more.
That's one example of an opportunity to powerfully exercise leverage in
the moment of choice. Here are two more:
There's the exact moment when I wake up in the morning when I can
choose the day ahead to be extraordinary or whether I'll
simply settle for sleepwalking through a funk. The
funk never shows up as something I'd gladly choose.
Rather, the funk shows up as a result of not
choosing the day ahead to be extraordinary. The world I
wake up into, which is to say the quality of the world
I wake up into, is mostly not good. Waiting beyond the veils of
sleep
are all those incomplete responsibilities, onuses, burdens
which
sleep
conveniently hides from me - at least temporarily. Now that I'm awake
again, they're
inexorably
back. And we all know you can't switch on the
morning news
if what you want is some cheerful reason to look forward to the day.
There's a moment just after waking in which there's an opportunity to
choose the quality of the day - without any support,
reason, or evidence that its circumstances will be enjoyable. Simply
choose ... and the future is altered, the day is great.
Don't choose ... and funk is the best I can
hope for.
There's the moment just before I get angry with someone
who's being rude, inconsiderate, or simply difficult. The way
they're being is no
reflection
on
who I am
... really! The way they're being is the way they're
being. I already know that. Yet in spite of myself, I take it
personally as if their way of being somehow diminishes
who I am.
I start to retaliate. In that moment, in that exact first
moment of retaliation, I lose all power. But in the moment of choice
before I'm given over to the automatic reaction to
retaliate, I can choose to come from my own experience. I
can choose to simply get the communication instead of
retaliating against it. There's an entirely new future available
starting with this choice, of which peace and power are only two of its
many possible outcomes.
There's a moment of choice many times, hundreds of times
throughout every day of our lives, a moment in which we can give
over to the inevitable outcome of a situation without making
any choice, when we can live out our automatic response in which choice
isn't exercised OR ... when we can choose an entirely
unpredictable outcome or even choose no outcome at all,
that is to say no inevitable outcome at all. It's not
simply choosing ie the presence of choice which makes for
discontiguous possible outcomes. It's more than that,
actually. It's choosing ie the presence of choice which calls for
who you are to step in. The bringing to bear of who you
are brings magic, miraculous new outcomes to any inevitable, erstwhile
predictable future.
As for saying what it is exactly which empowers you to sometimes choose
in the moment of choice and other times not to choose, as for saying
exactly what it is which has you sometimes see the
opportunity in the moment of choice and other times not to
see the opportunity, indeed as for saying what it is exactly which has
you sometimes see the moment of choice and other times not to see it at
all, I assert you'll get no greater satisfactory explanation or
experience for yourself other than to simply stand up.