MEN’S HEALTH & WELLNESS

CHOOSING

NOT TO CHOOSE

By: Benson Fox

Choices. Many do not want the responsibility for making them, and their reasoning makes sense on many levels. It feels good to cast off the yoke of responsibility since, in the short term, it provides relief, boosts freedom, and reduces effort and pain. Also, it offers one a pleasant cover and shield to avoid facing and addressing their internal unconscious suffering, and instead emotionally outsourcing it to others. They also correctly argue that not everything is determined by our internal locus of control, and we must balance it with an external locus of control such as Hashem’s will. Moreover, although all life circumstances are challenging, some have it harder than others through physiological realities, genetic predispositions, traumatic life experiences, hostile environments, and lack of love and support. Harsh experiences can and should be processed fully with the acceptance, compassion, and respect they deserve.

These benefits and needs have fueled intellectualizations and justifications through the pursuit of neuropsychological, genetic, and biological models. They place the “blame” of mental health and bad life choices at the feet of “sickness,” chemical imbalances, and other innate factors conveniently and largely beyond their control. Personal responsibility has been further eroded through inflation of awards and grades, the march toward accommodations, endless generous governmental benefits for those who do nothing, and viewing their personal problems as purely racially, religiously, economically, and politically systemic. For many reasons, we must not fall prey to such wallowing in the victim Olympics, where we all compete for who has the hardest life and most environmental impediments.

We always have a choice to make. All options may have prohibitive costs. One option may have a higher price to pay than the alternative, and that may make it feel like there is no choice, but there always is. You are choosing which costs and benefits are more valuable to you, and that value you are attributing is subjective, dynamic, and on a continuum. Own that and accept the consequences of your decisions in how they impact yourself and others. There are always many factors that have a part to play in your choice, but we must have the bravery, confidence, and willpower to choose to own our choices and their consequences. If your roommate kept you up late at night and you overslept, own it that you did not push back as much as you could have to get him to stop, set a louder alarm, or buy earplugs.

Choosing not to choose is a choice as well. It is the choice of choosing your default settings and current situation and trajectory to continue. Often this choice is confused with paralysis, which is possible but can also look like the workaholic father choosing to not approach his estranged daughter since he is afraid that he will say the wrong thing.

However, there is a big distinction between how we are meant to engage with ourselves and others. For others, we should focus on the external factors, compassion, and understanding the context of the choice. But for ourselves, we should focus on our internal locus of control, what we could have done better, and how to improve for next time. Our experiences do not define us, our reactions and choices to those experiences do. We do everything on purpose with varying degrees of consciousness, including when we delude ourselves into thinking that we can stall our decisions and their ramifications indefinitely.

Let us embrace responsibility and honesty with the choices we make, and understand that we are always making choices that have negative and positive consequences, even when we are choosing not to choose.

MBenson Fox is a contributing editor for Mochers Magazine. He also practices as a certified transformation life coach and psychology intern at Lynbrook Public High School. He specializes in helping Jewish men achieve higher levels of balance, joy, and confidence. He is a Psychology major from Touro college and currently a third-year Psychology Doctoral candidate at Adelphi University’s School PsyD program. He runs a Facebook group called Jewish Men for Joy, Balance, and Growth with 1200+ members. You can check out his other content on LinkedIn or Facebook @coachbensonfox or coachbensonfox.com. Email “RESULTS” to results@coachbensonfox.com for a free discovery session.