Can my choice be wrong?

Sossusvlei or Katima Mulilo? Work a bit harder or holiday a bit longer? Do you ever get stuck between two choices, and stop to ask yourself whether you have made the right one? What drives our choices, and will the wrong choice take us along a life path of doom? A new movie that is trending at the moment is about what one choice can do to our lives. It shows one choice as taking our lives on a completely different trajectory and asks the question “will we have the same kind of life after our choices?”.

None of us make perfect decisions all the time. The world would be a much more peaceful place if our decisions were always great. Our decisions are also affected by many things such as conditioning, perspective, rationality, choices and more. Choice is something we have so much of that it has a huge impact on the decisions we make.

I came across this quote by Deepak Chopra, which I thought was very fitting to answer these questions:

"If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling and action that you experience.”

What a beautiful sentiment, as it asserts that no choice is wrong, merely different. If life unfolds around our choices, and possibilities bring experiences, how can there be a wrong choice? Then choice merely is.

We all question ourselves and our choices, all the time. But has this just become another subversive way to beat ourselves up? A way to make ourselves feel ‘not good enough’?

If there is no real ‘right choice’, then why do we put so much pressure on making the perfect choice? Without a cheat sheet or handbook to life, all of us are just figuring it out as we go along. As long as none of the outcomes of your choices will directly harm you, then no matter which path you choose you will be presented with a set of opportunities and challenges. No path is necessarily better than the other but they may be vastly different.

Psychology today says that when we encounter a situation that we have never been in before, this is when we take our time to weigh options. Otherwise, our decisions are sort of automatic.

What about mistakes? All mistakes begin as choices – so have we actually been making the wrong choices? If we heed Deepak Chopra’s words then we see that even mistakes are opportunities and a chance for new learning and growth.

If right now you are sitting with a difficult decision, things that can help include:

• A pros and cons list, where you look at the benefits and drawbacks of your decision

• Meditation, where you find a peaceful place and quiet your mind to help you choose

• Your gut, that funny feeling in the pit of your stomach that makes you feel uncomfortable when you are doing something that isn't in your best interest

But ultimately, whatever you choose, you are going to learn and grow and you might even be setting off on a wonderful new adventure. So long as you are not harming yourself or another, your decision will be the right one.

Just remember that we cannot make progress without making decisions, so trust yourself enough to make a decision and know that it will be the right one for you.

Kirsty Watermeyer