How Much Choice Do We Have?

As I stood admiring the beautiful, home-made, gluten-free, chocolate cake sitting on the table in the staff kitchen (made by my co-author, I might add), that certainly was the question floating through my mind:  how much choice do I have in this situation? It seemed like my eyes, my taste buds, my thoughts, my desires, and most of my physical systems were urging me toward the cake. “After all,” I thought, “It is gluten-free, and it is the generous gift of a good friend. Surely, it is a blessing to me and my body all the way around.” And yet there was also a thought that, as tasty as it would be, the cake would add calories that I would either have to wear off or store.

I find that one thing that helps me at such choice-point cross roads like these that seem to come up on a daily basis is to simply remove myself from the situation to get a little more perspective, and to remind myself that I am at choice. Over time in the workplace, I have learned to not go with my first impulse to respond immediately to a challenging or feisty e-mail, put it aside for a bit, and come back to it later with cooler eyes, a wider mind, and a kinder, more intelligent writing style.

The other thing that helps me is to notice and remind myself how many times a day I do have a choice – often in terms of what I am doing, usually in how I am feeling, and always in what I am thinking. Philosopher Ernest Holmes said, “What thought has produced, thought can change.” What a stunning and liberating idea! That we can actually choose our thoughts, and therefore the effect they have on us.

Of course it might not be so easy at first. I have spent most of my life feeling like a victim of my own thinking – that my thoughts just were, as though they happened to me. What a relief it was to start to notice them, drop the ones I didn’t want, and encourage the ones I did want.  This is where an exercise like the one in Week 1 of Seeing Good at Work is helpful. Taking a few moments each day to note our positive or negative response to things in our environment begins to give us the awareness that leads to more choice and control in our thoughts and emotions.

Did I have a piece of cake? You betcha! Did I enjoy it? Very much! Did I go back to the kitchen from my office later in the afternoon for another piece? No. Do I have any regrets? None.        

Joyce Duffala