Over the years I have come to see an important aspect of the reality of free will and how important the choices we make are regarding the expression of who we truly ARE as defined by our previous choices and how today’s choices determine who we are becoming as defined by those choices….in their aggregate and in their progression – or the differences in our choosing based upon experience, maturity, balance, and wisdom achieved by and in those choices. There is much to understand about such choices in that text that encourages us to embrace uncertainty as an adventure and experiment or learning/teaching process in all outcomes by choosing our way through uncertainty without any clarity as to the actual outcomes that may result. We can predict outcome probabilities but we cannot truly control or manage outcomes due to so many variables and outside influences that affect those outcomes.
I look forward to other views and a study of this premise: that we do not control events or relationships or even circumstances to any great degree, but we absolutely control our response to all those….and more. We are here to learn “response-ability”, or the skill of responding to whatever befalls us, comes before us, or happens around us. It is my growing conviction that this is the primary thing we are here to learn….to respond TO love and to respond IN love….no matter the who or what that happens next. We are taught that maturity and spirit progress is a function of both the quantity and the quality of choices made in this, and the next, life. We are to learn from our choices how to then make better choices…and we will repeat the same choices over and over until we get those right, or more right, to then face additional uncertainties….and new choices. While procrastination appears to be not making a choice, we are taught that it is a choice too, the wrong choice. Patience and timing, yes; procrastination, no. We must decide hundreds of times a day to choose this or that. Choices are like a river’s current to a boulder upon the river’s bottom – a relentless torrent.
(1300.2) 118:6.6 In the mortal life, paths of differential conduct are continually opening and closing, and during the times when choice is possible the human personality is constantly deciding between these many courses of action. Temporal volition is linked to time, and it must await the passing of time to find opportunity for expression. Spiritual volition has begun to taste liberation from the fetters of time, having achieved partial escape from time sequence, and that is because spiritual volition is self-identifying with the will of God.
(1300.3) 118:6.7 Volition, the act of choosing, must function within the universe frame which has actualized in response to higher and prior choosing. The entire range of human will is strictly finite-limited except in one particular: When man chooses to find God and to be like him, such a choice is superfinite; only eternity can disclose whether this choice is also superabsonite.
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
The thing that was a great obstacle to me was my emotional reactions – anger, hurt feelings, failure, despair, etc. – and the choices I made from these “feelings”. My “response” was so often counterproductive and ego centric…..my response was about ME and what I wanted. I was not acting with any true form of “response-ability”. I was my own victim. It seems the more we allow our emotions to determine our response, the weaker that response. We face choices every day that require the mind to think outside of its own perceived best interests to truly train the mind how best to respond to every day, as we walk by, choices I think.
