The full possibility and the dreadful responsibility of the power to choose
As we step through our lives, things coalesce into significance.
A word read here, enjoyed there, remembered again here, written about there… becomes a value we live by.
A song heard then, listened to again through that time, shared with this person, watched live several times… becomes a symbol, containing much more than a song rationally can, which can blow the cobwebs out of your energy almost any day.
An event happens, then the story is told, shared, retold… and ends up factually inaccurate, but somehow conveying the deeper meaning far more effectively than the mere ‘facts’ ever could.
Sitting in a room, possibly in Costa Rica, looking at a draft of a book I was working on, I realised it was important to change how I had phrased one of the key ideas, to make it more mine. The chapter had been built on the idea from the children’s books I had loved, that we can choose our own adventures. But underneath, as I sat with that idea, I rewrote that chapter holding a simpler key idea: you can choose.
That phrasing became the centrepiece of the book which, some eight years later, was finally published last year.
During that process, one of my editors, Lily, effectively named the book. ‘How about, The Power to Choose?’ she said.
And so now, when I’m on a call, sitting on a shelf behind my left shoulder are the words ‘The Power to Choose’.
And before I know, choice has suddenly coalesced into one of central themes of my life.
It has been since my earliest forays into writing on this website - agency at the centre of hope and optimism.
And if it was there then, it must have been there longer.
Someone recently told me one of the reasons they wanted to speak to me was because I’d written the book on choice.
But that’s not quite true: I’d written the book on the power to choose.
A subtle distinction: it’s not really a book about how to choose. It’s a book about remembering that you have that power. And that you can exercise it in far more places than you think.
That you can switch your perspective in a moment and - if you choose to do so - suddenly new sights, new sounds, new possibilities can open around you.
In the book, to open this up, to show readers why they might want to use that power, of course I offer some suggestions of choices worth playing with. Of different choices they could make, about how they see others, or how they see the inner parts of themselves.
But choosing cuts multiple ways.
‘Freedom,’ the psychologist Jordan Peterson once wrote. ‘Dreadful freedom.’
The full sense of possibility that comes from our power to choose.
The dreadful realisation that with that power comes responsibility.
And that when we knowingly exercise our power to choose, we can no longer deny that we are a part of everything that is happening to us.
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PS I coach leaders and entrepreneurs. Read more here: https://www.robbieswale.com/
PPS My latest book, The Power to Choose: Finding Calm and Connection in a Complex World, is out now. Get your copy here: https://geni.us/powertochoose
This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.