The Consistent Choice

Balboa Press

Contents

Preface...........................................................xiWhy Examine Choice?...............................................1From Origins to Destinations......................................7The Finite Choice.................................................13The Nature of Choice..............................................19A Vital Ingredient................................................25The Decision-Making Hierarchy.....................................35The Tools We Need to Make Life-Giving Choices.....................53A Wellspring for the Living.......................................79Barrier Behaviors to Life-Choices.................................99It's Not Easy Being Green.........................................123The Joy-Filled Life...............................................141Extraordinary Choices.............................................153The Circle of Choice..............................................167Author's Note.....................................................179About the Author..................................................181Bibliography......................................................183

Chapter One

Human development and learning has resulted from a steady stream of choices, decisions and consequences. From the time one reaches an age when there is some control over decision-making, life is filled with an array of good and evil intentions, right and wrong options, and positive and negative outcomes. As children, our choices may not be calculated or well-considered; a toddler's choices are often governed by stretching the free-will muscles to see how they work. However, once a child's cognitive development increases, so does the sophistication of their choices. Children begin to rely less on impulse and innate behaviors, and discover that certain outcomes result from poor choices. As we grow and become more comfortable with this process we begin to see choices for what they are: opportunities for potential growth, stagnation, or harm. The complexity of human decision-making is a quality that separates us from other living species. Animals do not see the end of their existence as a possible outcome of their decisions. People, as more advanced creatures, are able to contemplate ourselves, our actions, our future – not solely as individuals but as a family of persons. As the human race has worked to become more civilized, it is important to remember that growth is the result of human choices. We continue to grow as we learn from our choices – from error as well as success. Yet, not unlike mice in a maze, from the very first choice made by humanity to the complexity of choices we face today, we struggle for the outcome that provides us with a reward, or, possibly more choices. The worst possible fate is a dead-end choice. The best case scenario is the alternative that provides us with additional opportunities that foster a pattern of growth by doing the least amount of harm.

As recorded in the Old Testament, humanity began its very existence with a life-altering choice, and from the very beginning God has honored our choices above everything else, for one of the greatest gifts we have received as living beings is free will. God created us with an aptitude for decision-making. We might well have been created otherwise, but the fact that we may choose to exercise this will for what is good or what is not good for us, is evidence that choices are woven into the very fabric of our being. From the Judeo-Christian account of the creation of Adam and Eve, one of the first things to confront this newly created couple was a set of instructions, followed by a choice. In the book of Genesis, God had commanded "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die" (Gn. 2:16-17). God had presented humanity with a choice from the very beginning, and from that first moment, Choose Life was a difficult choice to make.

As the first recorded decision ever made by human beings appeared to have been a life and death decision, it subsequently demonstrates the significance of every human decision since then. Why give humans such a definitive choice? Did they understand that it was a critical life-and-death choice? They were told it was, and yet they chose an option that perhaps seemed right at the time. If one supposes that this first recorded decision was the prototype for all succeeding decisions and that every decision is in some respect a life-or-death choice, it encourages us to examine all our decisions more carefully. Presumably, each day is another chance to remake that first decision made by the human race that chose some kind of harm over good. With each new day humanity plays out that scene again and again – the opportunity to make a choice that is life-giving over one that serves a different purpose.

The value of understanding the relationship between choice and desired outcome often comes down to motive. There is an innate need to serve a known, or even an unknown purpose with each decision that is made, but the old adage, "you can't always have your cake and eat it too" comes back to haunt us. We wish to have positive outcomes for both positive and negative choices. Professor Gregory Foster in his article "Ethics: Time to Revisit the Basics" explains,

"When we seek to determine the rightness or wrongness of something, we should do so with two major criteria in mind: truth and justice. Ralph Waldo Emerson made the monumentally insightful observation that 'truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it [truth] to affairs.' The two go hand in hand. Ethics—ethical reasoning, ethical choice, ethical conduct—requires that we seek the truth, the pinnacle of life, in order to have a proper basis—the only legitimate basis—for achieving justice. Justice served is ethics realized" (The Humanist).

By making consistent ethical choices, and choosing the life-result over the destructive choice, it is necessary to factor in truth and justice for the benefit of life, so that our choices rely on a beneficial and natural routine. Dr. Foster goes on to remind us that

"Habit is programmed repetition, the routinization of thought by which we remove presumably mundane matters to our subconscious so they can be dealt with more efficiently or conveniently without the attendant need to constantly revisit first principles."

In order to make consistent life-affirming choices, one must align all thoughts within the parameters of truth that is motivated by justice. This alignment is often challenged by the needs of the moment, to which little thought about truth and justice may be given.

Quite often, the bombardment of choices with which we are confronted on a daily basis can be overwhelming. It takes a concerted effort to entrust our intellect with the duty of making the decision to choose life among all our options. Most often, small decisions don't appear to be life-or-death. It often appears that larger decisions are more crucial – we know when those decisions come along and they can be agonizing. Yet, because habitual decisions are often at the mercy of non-thinking processes, it becomes even more critical to adjust all thoughts toward the ultimate good by making...