Have you ever played Duck Duck Goose1 and the person who’s it keeps walking and walking and walking and walking around and never picks the goose? It’s really boring.
There are very few actual dichotomies. Most choices are not binary. Most choices are more like: “Here is an array of options you can recognize (the subset of a potentially infinite array of options you can’t even see because you’re only able to recognize what’s familiar). Pick one!”
No wonder making decisions is so exhausting.
I can spend a lot of time musing over the array of options, but eventually I narrow it down to one option and then it’s time to make the real choice which is a dichotomy:
Yes, do it, action, go, forward.
Or No.
Choosing an option and then saying No to the option* I sel…
Have you ever played Duck Duck Goose1 and the person who’s it keeps walking and walking and walking and walking around and never picks the goose? It’s really boring.
There are very few actual dichotomies. Most choices are not binary. Most choices are more like: “Here is an array of options you can recognize (the subset of a potentially infinite array of options you can’t even see because you’re only able to recognize what’s familiar). Pick one!”
No wonder making decisions is so exhausting.
I can spend a lot of time musing over the array of options, but eventually I narrow it down to one option and then it’s time to make the real choice which is a dichotomy:
Yes, do it, action, go, forward.
Or No.
Choosing an option and then saying No to the option* I selected for myself* is wild!
Why would I do that?
Because choice is dangerous. Exerting the force of my will upon the world, or at least attempting to do so, is a risk.
Risk of pain, risk of failure, risk of being wrong (whatever that means), risk of ending up in a worse situation, risk of being misunderstood, risky risky risky!
Sometimes it feels safer to just hang out, not move, wait and see. It isn’t safer, usually, but it* feels* safer.
Passivity is a way to live but it’s not the way I like to live.
I like to happen. I like to be the thing that’s happening in my own life. I like to be the main character in my own story.
And I only get to happen by choosing.
Otherwise:
nothing happens and/or
things happen *to *me but
I never happen.
I make choices all day long but most of those are inconsequential, like:
what time will I get up, what food will I eat, will I be impatient or kind with my child, will I be impatient or kind with myself, will I make that phone call, will I go to the gym, will I worry, will I be grateful, will I floss today, will I finish this blog post, will I actually put away the clean laundry?
The answer to that last one is No.
It’s going to sit in the basket for a few days.
These choices all seem inconsequential but maybe they aren’t.
Tiny choices become a trend, the trend creates a groove, the groove becomes a rut and I walk the rut because it’s easier to stick with what’s familiar than to enact change, so here I am: that’s my life.
I can change it by making different tiny choices, one after another.
It’s not about the right choice or wrong choice or the accurate choice or idiotic choice or worst choice or best choice.
It’s about exerting your will. Choosing something. Selecting an option and then acting on it. Saying Yes.
Duck duck duck duck duck goose.
It’s about the goose.
It doesn’t matter who the goose is. It matters that you pick a goose. Otherwise there’s no game, just a bunch of kids sitting in a circle being bored and sad.
Everyone sits in a circle. One person walks around the circle, tapping others and saying *duck *until choosing a goose. The chosen goose tries to tag them before they sit down in the goose’s spot.