I have heard so many variations of this:
“I have no choice, I have to continue working at this job because I can’t find another one that pays this much.”
“I have no choice, I can’t go through a divorce because I’d be broke.”
“I have no choice, I must go to pre-med and become a doctor just like my parents and brother did.”
“I have no choice, I’m too busy to put in a 30 minute daily exercise routine into my schedule.”
and many more …
The examples are endless, and they all convey scenarios where people have given up the reigns of control over life and helplessly flip into auto-pilot mode.
Who’s flying the plane?
As I shared in an earlier post, choosing is the essence of living. Through choice, we dictate consequence - this simple cause and effect relationship is at the core of what life itself is about:
In reality, giving up control and declining to exercise choice is actually a symptom of an underlying issue: fear. We are so fearful of fear itself that we have become masters at conjuring up excuses that are shielded by the the half-truths we’ve nefariously baked into them.
Ironically, the more we complain about how hard life is because we are stuck doing whatever we are doing due to not having a choice, the further we detach ourselves from reality. The truth is that by giving up choice due to fear, the less “alive” we are and the more “hard” life becomes.
In fact, fear that leads to inaction is one of the culprits of “hard” lives.
Whatever one is afraid of is orders of magnitude less disastrous than the slow death of being trapped in a situation that is supposedly out of one’s control. People in this situation are alive, but they are not living. You can see the defeat in their eyes.
What is astonishing is that when you see workers commuting to work on the subway or bus, the proportion of dead eyes is orders of magnitudes greater than students going to or coming back from school. Strangely, it seems as if once we graduate from school and wade into the world as free individuals, we become less alive.
As students, we are put into straightjackets - we must go to class, we must follow orders from teachers, there are very specific rules to follow. As adults, we self-strap the straightjackets unto our minds. Even if we have freedom to do whatever we want to as adults, we don’t. Unlike students who have limiting factors imposed unto them, many of us impose limiting factors unto ourselves as adults and effectively die a slow death.
Then, there are the surreptitious examples where the individual believes s/he is exerting choice, yet in reality is a slave to a situation and merely reinforcing it:
“I’m fully aware of how unhealthy cigarettes are and I choose to smoke them regardless because I want to live my life according to my wishes.”
In reality, such a person has become a slave to the addiction of nicotine and has obfuscated the lack of choice by conflating desire with helplessness. These are the most nefarious situations one can find oneself in because of the delusion generated by the the overlapping factors. The choice being exerted is illusory. There is no choice going on, only justification through half truths.
Let me explain this more precisely. Recall the first example I gave above:
“I have no choice, I have to continue working at this job because I can’t find another one that pays this much.”
One can easily flip this like the cigarette smoker and proclaim:
“I choose to work at this job because it’s the highest paying job I could find.”
At face value, this seems to be a proactive assertion, and an active exercise of choice. However, what is not shared is just how much effort did this person put into looking for a high or higher paying job. Did s/he just do a compensation search on the internet? How many applications where submitted? How many interviews? Did s/he stop? When?
Many times, the absolute bare minimum is done to satisfy the statement technically, but not in spirit. In other words, there is a minimum threshold in our minds to clear to be able to say to ourselves that “I can’t find another job that pays this much,” and that’s the target because the goal is to avoid the fear of rejection and the uncertainty of changing jobs.
So, the next time you find yourself saying, “I have no choice but to …” take a step back. Ask yourself if you are setting yourself up to relinquish control over your life. Is there fear involved? Spend some time to introspect before jumping into autopilot mode.
And whatever you do, don’t be that cigarette smoker.
Millions of smokers outlive those spending their days on treadmills, drinking expensive imported bottled water.