Choice

{3:54 minutes to read} As with many things in life, when something comes at you in threes, it’s kind of like the universe tapping you on the shoulder to pay attention. The topic of “choice” showed up for me in that way.

Just before the holidays, I received a gift from my colleague and friend, Steve Linker. It was the book, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. I knew about the book, but had never read it before. When Steve and I had one of our many conversations about how our attitude about what life brings our way often determines the outcome, he mentioned the book to me.

Viktor Frankl was a concentration camp survivor who, before the Nazis occupied his beloved Austria, had the opportunity to leave—but because his parents could not, he decided to stay behind with them and face his fate. His book is a remarkable accounting of his extraordinary experience and what he wants people to know about persevering as a human being under such dire circumstances. Believe it or not, it is truly a story of hope.

The next choice I came face to face with was a very personal situation. In my grappling with it, I realized (with the help of my nearest and dearest) that my perspective was my choice, and as a result of that perspective, my response to it was also my choice. First, I had to claim total responsibility for it in order to see another way and thus free myself to make another choice. Perhaps a better choice.

Next came an email from another colleague and mediator from Minnesota—Marilyn McKnight. She shared a wonderful piece from a blog that a colleague of hers, Seth Goldin, sent her on January 1st of this year:

The Choice

Attitude is the most important choice any of us will make. We made it yesterday and we get another choice to make it today. And then again tomorrow.

The choice to participate;
To be optimistic;
To intentionally bring out the best in other people.

We make the choice to inquire, to be curious, to challenge the status quo;
To give people the benefit of the doubt;
To find hope instead of fear in the face of uncertainty;

Of course these are attitudes. What else could they be?
And of course, they are a choice. No one does these things to us. We choose them and do the work (and find the benefits) that come with them.

I have shared this piece with a number of my clients who, in the throes of anguish, anger and fear, may have wanted to excuse themselves from any responsibility for the issues that brought them to my office in the first place.

I think when we take a deep breath and remember that, although we may not always have a say in what life throws our way, we DO have a choice about how we are going to respond to those circumstances. I say this as a human being first and a mediator second.