Your Life is the Sum of Your Choices… and Also of Your Evasions

When we are young, the paths before us may seem many… yet every choice we make contains constraints, the closing off of other paths, other possibilities. Given the finiteness of our 3 score and ten, the reality of limited resources, every yes carries a multitude of no’s. A contented life fully lived rests on complete and conscious evaluation as we contemplate the paths we take and avoid evasion like the plague. However, evasions take many forms, some subtle: endless procrastination, truths considered too painful to face, potential constantly denied, responsibilities frequently sidestepped, decisions outsourced to convention or other’s expectations, selective attention, homesteading comfort zones… the list is endless and the devil is creative in his buffet of temptations.

Your emotional health can be impacted by such evaded truths: feelings buried alive never die. Choices tend to be public, visible, and often relatively clear cut. Evasions tend to be private and ongoing; they may feel passive, but they come with consequences and the potential for lingering unresolved tensions that can fester over time. Humans tend to over-weight decisive moments (“I chose X”) while quiet patterns of avoidance fade into the background, root causes disappearing from our awareness leaving us confused and bewildered when symptoms of discontent surface.

Be it:

The opportunity you passed on because it seemed too daunting/scary or

The difficult conversation endlessly postponed or

The relationship patterns you constantly refuse to examine… 

All run the real risk of fostering stagnant relationships and a stunted life. Evasions can quietly carve out parts of your identity, potentially diminishing your vital vibrance. Wisdom lies in full awareness of what you are saying no to; unacknowledged evasions can become negative space that defines you as much as, if not more than your visible decisions and active choices do.

Closing Quotes:

“We are not only responsible for what we do, but also for what we do not do.” – Molière, 1622-1673

“Identity is a consistent up-to-date summary of our choices.” – Garry Kasparov, b. 1963, World Chess Champion, 1985-2000

“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” – William James, 1842-1910, (aka ‘Decision by Indecision’)

“Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.” – Ayn Rand, 1905-1982, ‘Atlas Shrugged’, ‘The Fountainhead’

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate… People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.” – Carl Gustav Jung, 1875-1961

As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier

Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3^rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832