It's all over our culture...
In movies:
The Dark Knight- Alfred: They'll hate you for it, but that's the point of Batman, he can be the outcast. He can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice.
If I Stay- Gayle Forman: Sometime you make choices, and sometimes choices make you.
Pitch Perfect- Fat Amy: Sometimes I have a feeling I can do crystal meth.. But them I think; mmmm better not! (Maybe not the perfect example of choice, but it's Fat Amy, so it's great life advice...)
In books:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban- Albus Dumbledore: It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. (It wouldn't be my blog if I didn't have an HP reference...)
Alice in Wonderland: Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire Cat."I don't know," Alice answered.'Then,' said the Cat, "it doesn't matter."
And then there are just the badass quotes about choice:
Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.
-Wayne Dyer
May your choices in life reflect your hopes, not your fears.- Nelson Mandela (BRILLIANT.)
Choose Happiness. - Some Dumb Pinterest picture
I love the idea of choices. You have the capability of deciding how you want your story to go, how your direction moves and how you handle situations. But we live in a convoluted society that gives the impression that there is a RIGHT and a WRONG choice. Oh, how wrong that is....
My belief is that there is not a RIGHT and a WRONG choice. Yes, there are moral values that might be compromised in a decision. There are paths that are more desirable to the end result but there isnt a WRONG one.
Every choice you make guides you to the path of where you're supposed to be. I truly believe that our experiences shape us. I have been in some pretty rough places in the past. POSSIBLE OVER SHARE ALERT: For those of you who don't know, I was a victim of child molestation when I was seven years old. Many of you are gasping right now for one of two reasons; 1) Holy crap, I never knew that, or 2) Holy crap, why is she sharing that with the whole freaking internet?!
Well, the reasons I share this are : A) It's not my fault, and I'm not ashamed to talk about it, B) Talking about my history does not make me an attention whore, C) It's going to help me make my point about choices, D) Advocacy is best inspired by people who have gone through the situations and I am willing to talk about my experience with ANYONE as long as the conversation is about how to advocate for knowledge and support. **SIDE NOTE**If this is a cause you'd be interested in supporting, there's an incredible organization that helped me and so many others called the Children's Advocacy Center in Jackson County (for more info, click HERE )
I was so young when that happened to me and my conscious mind has blocked out a lot of what my little seven year old self went through. HOWEVER, I'd be lying if I said I was completely unaffected by my experience. Because I was so young, I don't know how I would have turned out if I hadn't gone through something so traumatic, but I know that telling my mom about what happened was my first BIG lesson on choices. I was told not to tell my parents, but I knew that wasn't what I should do. I told my mom. I made a huge choice. It would be considered a morally right decision by most, but many others in the situation similar to mine did NOT tell about what happened to them. Is that saying they made the WRONG decision? No. It's just a choice that can lead to a VERY different outcome for most people who were in my shoes.
Heavy stuff, sorry, but choices are a heavy topic. Way too many of my friends are afraid of making the wrong decision. They're too caught up in how their decision will be perceived. They're worried about doing what's right, even to the point of shutting down and panicking about their decision, making it so that nothing ends up coming from their situation (which is a choice in itself). But what if there isn't a right or wrong decision? What if there are just alternate endings? I think that goes back to the original premise of this blog, NO END IN SIGHT, taking something that is negatively viewed in our culture and then turning it to the positive. Eliminating the negative verbage.
Choices are beautiful.
The freedom of choice is something that we Americans take for granted very frequently. You can choose to go to college. You can choose to drop out of high school. Neither choice is right. Neither choice is wrong. Choices in life aren't a 2+2=4 equation. They're more like giving a crazy word problem from a physics exam to a group of sixth graders and asking them to come up with the back-story of why a train was traveling from Atlanta to HongKong. The reality is that each sixth grader will come up with a different story as to why/how the train was able to cross the ocean and multiple countries. None of the stories are right. Heck, the question is made up, right? And the idea of making all the right decisions is made up, too.
The real trick is to learn from your choices, to make a few mistakes, but to gain something from each experience. In my story, confiding in my mother set us up for a relationship that was strengthened to the core by a level of communication that we might not have had if I hadn't gone through what I did. I wouldn't have been able to advocate at City Hall as a third graader for an organization that truly saved so many children from terrible acts. I wouldn't have been able to get together with a group of young women through a teen mentorship program that taught me SO MUCH, about myself and about the resiliance of humans, period. I would never wish my scenario on anyone, but I also wouldn't change it because it made me the woman I am today.
Remember that your choices are important and still require much deliberation but breathe in the fact that you'll always have the ability to make a change in your situation. Whatever choice you make is the right choice.
I love this post Sarah! Thank you for sharing! I went through something similar when I was younger and learned the hard way about choices, about how they shape you - do I tell or not? I didn't, but a friend did, something that I am really grateful for and makes me grateful for people like you in my life! :)
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